Spanish Word of the Day: gringo

Photo by A National Acrobat

I’m 100% sure that you know today’s word. Everyone knows that gringo (gringa in de female form) means foreigner. But, many foreigners in Spain call themselves gringo as well which is just wrong. Most people in Spain don’t use gringo but use extranjero or guiri instead.

Also, in Latin-America a gringo is a person from a non-Spanish speaking country. That means that a Spaniard isn’t a gringo for Mexicans or other Latin-Americans. For many Latin-Americans a gringo equals to a North-American, but officially this isn’t correct either. In any case it’s a negative word, even if people say it as a joke.

Something interesting is the fact that in many Andes-countries the word gringo or gringa can be used to refer to a blonde person as well.

The history of the word gringo
According to this article the word gringo comes from griego - ‘Greek’. In that time Latin was the most important language and Greek wasn’t (anymore), so many regarded it simply as a foreign language.

Another popular story is that the word comes from the American-Mexican war in which American soldiers used to sing the song ‘Green Grow the Lilacs‘. However, a Spanish friend of mine once told me that it probably came from the Mexicans that yelled ‘Green go!’. Either way, it’s interesting and explains the negative undertone the word carries.

Sentences

No queremos gringos en este país.
We don’t like foreigners in this country.

Siempre soñaba con las gringas de las películas.
He always dreamt about the blondes from the movies.

Tagged as: gringo, latin-american spanish, spanish colloquial speech, spanish insult, Spanish Word of the Day