vato

V4A1T1O1

noun

A Hispanic youth; a guy; a dude.

OriginSpanish vato →
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Meanings

nounvato (plural vatos)

plural vatos

  1. Chicano slangA Hispanic youth; a guy; a dude.

    Say sergeant, my primo from Osten is over there. A real crazy vato, man.

    1976, Christopher Press (publisher), Caracol, Volumes 3-4
    2 more examples

    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.

    1998 February 22, Guy Trebay, “Uprising the Indie”, in The New York Times Magazine

    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.

    1999, Mick Farren, Jim Morrison's Adventures in the Afterlife, A Novel

Origin

  1. Spanishvato
  2. Englishvato

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

More words from Spanish

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

vato. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vato

MLA

“vato.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vato. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “vato,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vato.

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