gringo

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

• IPA^(key): /ɡɹɪŋɡəʊ/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪŋɡəʊ

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.

• See Thesaurus:white person

• Gringoland
• Gringolandia

• gringa (female)
• gringophobia

• gringo on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Goring, goring, orging

Borrowed from Spanish gringo.

• Rhymes: -ĩɡu
• Hyphenation: gri‧go

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

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.

• 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.

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 w:Green Grow the Lilacs among the men who settled the interior of the American continent.

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

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, 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, 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.

• agringar
• gringo de agua juca (Honduras)
• Gringolandia, gringolandia f
• Gringotenango
• gringuera f (Honduras)

• → English: gringo
• → Portuguese: gringo

• chele (Honduras)
• cholo
• grencho (Honduras)
• güero
• pocho
• guiri

• “gringo”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014
• Comprehensive etymology tracing it to before the Mexican-American war

gringo c

1. a gringo

• gringo in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• gringo in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)