Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

vato

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.90 in modern English

Syllables: va-to
IPA

7

Scrabble Score

4

Letters

2

Syllables

4

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A Hispanic youth; a guy; a dude.

Example Sentences

"Say sergeant, my primo from Osten is over there. A real crazy vato, man."
"Its 20-page portfolio of stills from the music-video director Mark Romanek functions as a virtual swipe book of contemporary style idioms: cowboys, aliens, vatos, Janet Jackson and Madonna."
"Two of the pursuers broke cover, a zoot-suited vato armed with a sacred Thompson gun and a thugee in dirty robes with a nineteenth century Martini carbine."

Etymology

From Spanish vato, ultimately from chivato. Term is mostly used by people from northwest Mexico (Sinaloa, Sonora, Chihuahua, Baja California).

Origin

Source language: Spanish

Word Breakdown

Root: vato

Inflected Forms

vatos (plural)

Questions

What does vato mean?: A Hispanic youth; a guy; a dude.
Where does vato come from?: It is traced to Spanish.

How to pronounce vato

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “vato”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling () so you know which sounds to aim for.
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