Meanings
plural hombres
- USespeciallyslangMan, chap, guy; especially a Hispanic or Spanish man.
that gunslinger is one bad hombre
5 more examples
[W]e're glad to learn that the Yankee bullet has not quite stopped your breath. You're all right, hombre!
c. 1850, [Thomas] Mayne Reid, “A Group of Jarochos”, in The Guerilla^([sic]) Chief, and Other Tales, London: C. H. Clarke, 13, Paternoster Row, →OCLC, page 62That hombre now with the worn out hat, tattered shirt, and fragmentary breeches, wears a sword. Bless you, his dignity would suffer greatly without it!
1852 March 8, E. P., “Golden Correspondence.—No. 1”, in J[oseph] M. Church, editor, Church’s Bizarre. For Fireside and Wayside, volume I, number 1 (New Series), Philadelphia, Pa.: Church & Co., 140 Chestnut Street, published 17 April 1852, →OCLC, page 9, column 2Coming towards us was the biggest, meanest looking hombre I'd ever seen.
1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 92The foreman. As tough an hombre who ever lived. If Mr. Bell had sent Jackson instead of me, he'd take your rifle and beat you half to death with it.
2010, Jon Sharpe [pseudonym], chapter 1, in Rocky Mountain Revenge (The Trailsman; no. 342), New York, N.Y.: Signet Books, New American Library, →ISBNThere was a pause I didn't like, punctuated by shrieks of shrill laughter from the hombres at the bar. Only Mexicans can laugh like that.
2016, Lawrence Winkler, “Bajada”, in Orion’s Cartwheel (Cartwheels Quadrilogy; 1), Victoria, B.C.: First Choice Books, →ISBN, page 22
Synonyms & antonyms
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*dʰeǵʰ-
- Proto-Indo-European*dʰéǵʰōm
- Proto-Indo-European*ǵʰmṓ
- Proto-Italic*hemō
- Latinhemō
- Latinhomō
- Latinhominem
- Old Spanishomne
- Spanishhombre
- Englishhombre
Borrowed from Spanish hombre (“man; human being”). Doublet of gome, homo, ombre, and omi.
More words from Spanish
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
hombre. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hombre
“hombre.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hombre. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hombre,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hombre.
Source: hombre on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.