What does gringo mean in slang?

In everyday Spanish a gringo is a foreigner, especially an English speaker, and in Mexico and much of Latin America it also means someone from the United States. Mexican Spanish has a la gringa, splitting a restaurant bill so each person pays for what they had, and in Chile a lo gringo means going without underwear.

Who are the gringos in Mexico?

In Mexico, gringos are first of all people from the United States. El Colegio de Mexico's Diccionario del espanol de Mexico gives that as the word's first sense, with examples such as tropas gringas and bancos gringos, and adds a second: someone blond who speaks a foreign language.

Is gringo an offensive word?

Gringo can be offensive, though not always. The Real Academia Espanola says it is sometimes used disparagingly, the American Heritage Dictionary labels it 'Often Offensive', and Brazil's Michaelis dictionary marks it pejorative.

Where does the word gringo come from?

Gringo was first written down in Spain, not in wartime Mexico. A Madrid dictionary published in 1787 says Malaga called foreigners gringos when their accent kept them from speaking natural Castilian, and that Madrid gave the name particularly to the Irish. The American Heritage Dictionary and Etymonline both suggest griego, Greek, which Spanish has long used for unintelligible speech, while the Real Academia Espanola marks the etymology as disputed.

Does gringo refer to skin colour?

In several countries gringo can describe fair skin or blond hair, but its main senses are about nationality and language, and in Mexico it means first of all someone from the United States. The Real Academia Espanola records a blond, fair-skinned sense in Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru, the Diccionario de americanismos a fair-skinned foreigner with red, blond or light brown hair in Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile, and Mexico's dictionary a blond speaker of a foreign language. Mexican Spanish has its own word for a blond person, guero.

What Does Gringo Mean? Madrid Once Used It for the Irish

American soldiers in the Mexican-American War are supposed to have sung “Green Grow the Lilacs”, or “Green Grow the Rushes, O”, until the Mexicans who heard them turned the first two words into a name for the singers. In the other popular version, locals shouted “Green, go home!” at troops said to be wearing green uniforms.

As usually told, both versions need the word to be born in the 1840s. A dictionary published in Madrid already defined it 59 years before the war began, and in Madrid the name went particularly to the Irish.

What does gringo mean?

Gringo is a colloquial Spanish word for a foreigner, especially an English speaker. In Mexico and much of Latin America it also means someone from the United States. Brazilian Portuguese uses it for any foreigner. The Real Academia Espanola notes that it is sometimes used disparagingly. The word predates the Mexican-American War: a Madrid dictionary had it by 1787.

The word was in a Madrid dictionary by 1787

The second volume of Esteban de Terreros y Pando’s Diccionario castellano has MDCCLXXXVII, 1787, on its title page. The entry for GRINGOS is on page 240. Translated, it reads:

“Gringos is what they call foreigners in Malaga who have a certain kind of accent, which keeps them from speaking easy, natural Castilian; and in Madrid they give the same name, for the same reason, particularly to the Irish.” - Terreros y Pando, Diccionario castellano, 1787

The Spanish for that last clause is con particularidad a los Irlandeses. The definition turns on an accent, and the word was already current in two cities when Terreros wrote it.

Terreros never saw the dictionary published, and his entry is older than its title page. Printing began in 1765. When the Crown expelled his order, the Jesuits, in 1767, volume one was all but finished and about half of volume two, the half that holds GRINGOS, had been printed, according to the Biblioteca Virtual de la Filologia Espanola. He died in exile in 1782, and librarians in Madrid finished the printing on the orders of the Count of Floridablanca.

Green Grow the Lilacs cannot explain a word in print by 1787

The war both stories depend on ran from 1846 to 1848, according to the National Archives. A word in a Madrid dictionary by 1787 cannot have been coined by soldiers in Mexico in 1846. The New York story behind flea market fails the same way: the Fly Market it credits closed in 1822, 65 years before the earliest known English use of the name. Not every slang word can be dated this cleanly: the police nickname 12 has four competing origin stories, none backed by a dated first use.

The Online Etymology Dictionary finds it in English before the war too, by 1841, in a Chilean context. It also notes an 1831 English-language novel by Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio with a character called “Mr. O’Gringo, an Irishman,” a name that echoes Madrid’s usage.

Etymonline’s verdict on the song is flat: the claim of “a Mexican mishearing of American or Irish soldiers singing Green Grow the Rushes (or some variant on the title) has no factual basis. The word first appears in Spain.” An Argentine telling moves the singers to British soldiers in Buenos Aires in 1806, which is still too late.

The green-uniform version fails on the same dates, and so does a companion story that derives gringo from Erin go bragh, the motto of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion, which fought for Mexico in that war. Another version, offered only as a conjecture in Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta’s 1899 Vocabulario de mexicanismos, tied the motto to the Irish in Spain, and the dates cannot rule it out.

The war stories all make the same mistake as the story of American troops in Belgium naming french fries: a war gets the credit for a word already in print before the fighting started. A Danbury paper made the same kind of mistake with paint the town red, crediting it to a Connecticut governor whose 1883 speech came nearly nine years after an Omaha paper printed the phrase.

Greek has the best evidence and still no proof

The American Heritage Dictionary and Etymonline both point to griego, Spanish for Greek, and both hedge. The AHD says gringo is possibly an alteration of griego; Etymonline says “perhaps” and warns that “this may be folk etymology”. The Real Academia labels the etymology disc., its abbreviation for disputed.

The best evidence survives in the current dictionary: the Real Academia defines gringo as “lenguaje ininteligible”, unintelligible language, with griego as a synonym. Its entry for griego defines that word as language “considerado incomprensible” and lists gringo as a synonym. It is the Spanish counterpart of “it’s Greek to me.”

In 1805 Antonio de Capmany’s French-Spanish dictionary, printed in Madrid, needed Spanish for the French idioms for speech nobody can follow: parler hebreu, bas-breton, haut-allemand (to speak Hebrew, Low Breton or High German). It gave hablar en griego, en guirigay, en gringo: to speak Greek, gibberish or gringo.

Who counts as a gringo depends on the country

By 1849 the word was being shouted at Americans. John Woodhouse Audubon, son of the ornithologist John James Audubon, was crossing northern Mexico toward the California gold fields that June, and at a garrison town called Cerro Gordo his party was “hooted and shouted at” and “called ‘Gringoes,’” his journal records. In Mexico, someone from the United States is still the word’s first sense.

Where	What gringo means there
Mexico	Someone from the United States; also a blond speaker of a foreign language
Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Peru, Venezuela and seven more	Someone from the United States
Uruguay	Also someone from England, or from Russia
Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru	Also a blond, fair-skinned person
Argentina	A foreigner, first the English and later particularly Italians
Brazil	Anyone living outside their native country, especially if blond or red-haired

Senses from the Real Academia Espanola, El Colegio de Mexico’s Diccionario del espanol de Mexico, the Academia Argentina de Letras as quoted by Adriana Crolla, and the Brazilian Michaelis dictionary.

Mexican Spanish has built idioms on it as well. To eat a la gringa is to split the bill so that each person pays for what they had, and ojo de gringa, a gringa’s eye, was slang for the fifty-peso note back when it was printed in blue ink. The Diccionario de americanismos records a Chilean phrase too: a lo gringo, going without underwear.

The dictionaries disagree on how much it stings

Gringo can be an insult, but not every dictionary says so. Capmany’s 1805 dictionary marked it joc., short for voz jocosa, a jocular word, and El Colegio de Mexico’s dictionary lists it as popular speech with no derogatory label.

The others are harsher. The Real Academia’s entry carries “U. a veces en sent. despect.”, its shorthand for sometimes used disparagingly, on both its general sense and its American one. Michaelis marks it pejorative, the Portuguese Priberam tags it depreciativo, and the American Heritage Dictionary labels it “Often Offensive”.

More than two centuries on, the target has moved from Irishmen in Madrid to Americans in Mexico, but the Real Academia still defines a gringo first as a foreigner who speaks a language other than Spanish. Strictly FYI.