asco

Asco is a Spanish noun that expresses a feeling of intense dislike or repugnance toward something, often translated as disgust or revulsion. It can describe a physical reaction to tastes or smells, as well as moral or social revulsion. The usual construction uses the verb phrase dar asco to indicate that something causes disgust: me da asco la comida, ese olor me da asco. The exclamatory phrase qué asco is common to express strong disgust in the moment. The noun can be modified by adjectives such as mucho or poco, and it can refer to both concrete things (un alimento, un olor) and abstract situations (un comportamiento). The related adjective asqueroso or asquerosa means disgusting, while asquerosidad denotes the quality of being disgusting or repugnant.

In Spanish, asco is informal and widely used in everyday speech across dialects; in more formal or technical contexts, readers might prefer terms like repugnancia or desagrado. The word is primarily a noun for emotion, not a clinical diagnosis.

In English-language contexts, ASCO in all caps refers to organizations, most notably the American Society of Clinical Oncology, a professional society focused on cancer research and treatment; this acronym is unrelated to the Spanish term beyond pronunciation.