cartonero

C3A1R1T1O1N1E1R1O1

noun

A person in Latin America who collects discarded waste, such as cardboard, to reuse or resell.

OriginSpanish cartonero →
Scrabble 11
Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

nouncartonero (plural cartoneros)

plural cartoneros

  1. A person in Latin America who collects discarded waste, such as cardboard, to reuse or resell.

    Tens of thousands of the unemployed scavenged the streets collecting cardboard, an enduring image that gave rise to the term “cartoneros.”

    2015 June 25, James B. Stewart, “If Greece Defaults, Imagine Argentina, but Much Worse”, in New York Times

Origin

  1. Spanishcartonero
  2. Englishcartonero

From Spanish cartonero.

More words from Spanish

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

cartooner
Cite this entry
APA

cartonero. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cartonero

MLA

“cartonero.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cartonero. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “cartonero,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cartonero.

Source: cartonero on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.