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gringo

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Spanish gringo, from griego (“Greek”), used for anyone who spoke an unintelligible language. Doublet of Greek.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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gringo (plural gringos or gringoes)

  1. (slang, often derogatory) A white person from an English-speaking country, particularly the United States.
    • 2017, B. M. Bower, The Gringos: The Tale of the California Gold Rush Days:
      Truly it is as Don José tells me; these gringos have come but to make trouble where all was peace.

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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Portuguese

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Portuguese Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia pt

Etymology

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Borrowed from Spanish gringo.

Pronunciation

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  • Rhymes: -ĩɡu
  • Hyphenation: gri‧go

Noun

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gringo m (plural gringos, feminine gringa, feminine plural gringas)

  1. (Brazil, colloquial) a foreigner, especially one from a Northern country and especially one from the United States
    Synonym: estrangeiro
  2. (Rio Grande do Sul, colloquial) someone of (more commonly) Italian or (more rarely) European descent.
    Synonym: colono

Adjective

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gringo (feminine gringa, masculine plural gringos, feminine plural gringas)

  1. (Brazil, colloquial) foreign (from another country, especially the United States or another developed one)
    Aquele cara ali é gringo.
    That dude over there is a foreigner.
    Comprei um telefone gringo.
    I bought a foreign-made telephone.
  2. (Rio Grande do Sul, colloquial) someone of (more commonly) Italian or (more rarely) European descent.
    Synonym: colono

Usage notes

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  • Unlike English and Spanish gringo, this Portuguese term is not inherently offensive.
  • The usage of gringo varies greatly between speakers and can have a broader meaning if compared to English and Spanish [1]:
    • It can refer to any foreigner — uncommon usage and rarely applies to people of African or Latin American origin.
    • It refers only to Americans — also uncommon.
    • It refers to people from the Global North exclusively, especially from Northern Europe, the US and Canada — the most common use of the term.

References

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  1. ^ Thaddeus Blanchette (2002 Sep.–Dec.) “Estrangeiro - Gringo - Brasileiro: Aproximação e afastamento entre brasileiros e não-brasileiros”, in TRAVESSIA - Revista Do Migrante (in Portuguese), number 44, São Paulo: Peres, →DOI, retrieved 2024-01-18, pages 18–23

Spanish

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Etymology

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Possibly from griego (“Greek”), particularly from the phrase hablar en griego (“to speak Greek”), with a similar connotation to the English phrase it's all Greek to me. Possibly influenced by peregrino (“pilgrim”). Or else due to the ubiquity of the song Green Grow the Lilacs among the men who settled the interior of the American continent.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈɡɾinɡo/ [ˈɡɾĩŋ.ɡo]
  • Rhymes: -inɡo
  • Syllabification: grin‧go

Noun

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gringo m (plural gringos, feminine gringa, feminine plural gringas)

  1. (sometimes derogatory, Latin America) a fair-skinned foreigner whose native language is not Spanish
    Synonyms: (Spain, Mexico) gabacho, (Spain) guiri
    • 1786, Esteban de Terroros y Pando, Beatriz Varela, Diccionario castellano con las voces de Ciencias y Artes y sus correspondientes en las 3 lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, →ISBN; quoted in “Ethnic nicknames of Spanish origin in American English”, in Félix Rodríguez González, editor, Spanish Loanwords in the English Language: A Tendency towards Hegemony Reversal‎[1], Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1996, page 143:
      ... gringos, llaman en Málaga a los extranjeros, que tienen cierta especie de acento, que los priva de una locución fácil, y natural Castellana; y en Madrid dan el mismo, y por la misma causa con particularidad a los irlandeses.
      gringos is what, in Malaga, they call foreigners who have a certain kind of accent that prevents them from speaking Castilian easily and naturally; and in Madrid they give the same name, in particular, to the Irish.
  2. (sometimes derogatory, Latin America) an American (a person from the United States), especially a white American.
    Coordinate terms: angloamericano, estadounidense, norteamericano
    • 2008 October 8, Antonio Caballero, “El negro gringo (o el gringo negro)”, in Semana‎[2], retrieved 2014-08-01:
      Pero la realidad es más terca que la corrección política, y el hecho real es que Barack Obama, próximo presidente de los Estados Unidos, es un gringo, y es un negro. O, si se prefiere así, es un negro, y es un gringo.
      But the reality is more stubborn than political correctness, and the fact is that Barack Obama, the next president of the United States, is a gringo, and is a black. Or, if you so prefer, is a black, and a gringo.

Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → English: gringo
  • → Portuguese: gringo

See also

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Further reading

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Swedish

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Noun

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gringo c

  1. a gringo

Declension

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Declension of gringo
nominative genitive
singular indefinite gringo gringos
definite gringon gringons
plural indefinite gringos gringos
definite gringosarna gringosarnas

References

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