A Manhattan teacher will have to put less money in the swear jar thanks to a sympathetic judge.

Carlos Garcia used a Spanish expletive beginning with “c” in class during the 2008-2009 school year, when some of the juniors in his Washington Heights history class “did not behave and listen to instruction,” court papers say.

Garcia said it’s considered a fairly mild expletive in some Latin cultures.

The Education Department, however, likened it to saying “f – – k,” and fined Garcia $15,000.

Justice Barbara Jaffe reduced the fine to $1,000, calling the original penalty “disproportionate” to the crime.

“Although I doubt that petitioner’s use of the word . . . tended to cause fear or physical or mental distress . . . there is an insufficient legal basis for finding that the hearing officer’s determination is arbitrary and capricious,” the judge wrote.