no sabo kid

US/noʊ ˈsɑ.boʊ kɪd/

noun

A person with Hispanic heritage who grew up in a non-Spanish speaking country and knows little to no Spanish.

Meanings

nounno sabo kid (plural no sabo kids)

plural no sabo kids

  1. derogatoryoffensiveA person with Hispanic heritage who grew up in a non-Spanish speaking country and knows little to no Spanish.

    Although identifying someone as a no sabo kid is equivalent to a linguistic (micro)aggression, these kinds of assignments can help HL learners build up their awareness so that they can reclaim the term and challenge the negative connotation associated with it […]

    2024 April 16, Rachel Showstack, Diego Pascual y Cabo, Damián Vergara Wilson, Language Ideologies and Linguistic Identity in Heritage Language Learning, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN
    2 more examples

    For example, as a reaction to this video, one user commented, "I can't understand how parents who are fluent in Spanish don't make an effort to teach their kids Spanish. If I ever have kids, I'm going to only speak Spanish to them. I ain't raising no no sabo kids. "

    2022 September 30, Ana Sánchez-Muñoz, Jessica Retis, Communicative Spaces in Bilingual Contexts: Discourses, Synergies and Counterflows in Spanish and English, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN

    I relate to the "no sabo" kids, the children of native Spanish speakers who learn only some of the basics of a language that sounds like home, the ones who are grown and thinking about their identity in a country that doesn't always accept them while knowing that the country of their parents wouldn't either.

    2023 October 11, Cassie McClure, My So-Called Millennial Life, Creators Publishing, →ISBN

Origin

  1. Spanish(yo) no sabo
  2. Englishno sabo kid

From Spanish (yo) no sabo, an incorrect way of saying no sé (“I don't know”), + kid.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

no sabo kid. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/no%20sabo%20kid

MLA

“no sabo kid.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/no%20sabo%20kid. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “no sabo kid,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/no%20sabo%20kid.

Source: no sabo kid on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.