What does “caraca” mean in Brazilian Portuguese?

Caraca is the all-purpose Brazilian “whoa” — shock, outrage, awe and delight in three syllables. It sits with caramba and nossa in the family of softened exclamations, and is widely taken to be a defused relative of the vulgar caralho. That is what makes it useful: it keeps the punch and loses the profanity. Comfortable among friends, still far too casual for a job interview.

Its cousins map the register neatly: nossa! (from Nossa Senhora) is the mildest, caramba is family-safe, caraca is street-casual, and the unshortened word is genuinely rude. Brazilians often stack it with an approval marker, exactly as this clip does — caraca, aí sim! — where aí sim means “now that’s more like it.”