Word.ws English Dictionary

abuela

/ɑˈbweɪlə/

abuela noun: a Hispanic grandmother.

Noun

abuela (plural abuelas)

  1. A Hispanic grandmother.
    • I, an abuela-aged woman of Northern European ancestry, have lived within 50 miles of the Mexican border most of my life. Mexican culture is part of my life as much as any of my DNA cultures, if not more, and I love it all.2022 February 17, Diane Scholfield, “Letters to the Editor: Is ‘gringo’ offensive? That’s up to the person being called one”, in Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles Times...
    • 8 a.m. Wake up early for breakfast at an abuela’s house2022 June 22, Mia Moretti, as told to Margaret Rhodes, “Mia Moretti’s Weekend of Wine and Baja Clams in Valle de Guadalupe”, in The Strategist, New York, N.Y.: New York Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived...

Examples of abuela in a sentence

  • You say that to an abuela, and the most likely response will be “que?” followed by a quick “adios!”2022 July 14, Mike Gonzalez, “Democrats are in denial about why they are losing Hispanic voters”, in New York Post, New York, N.Y.: News...
  • On the east side of San Jose, Calif., there is an abuela who seems to have more grandchildren than she can count.2024 April 3, Frank Rojas, “‘Carefluencers’ Are Helping Older Loved Ones, and Posting About It”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The...
  • I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas.2025 November 5, Zohran Mamdani, “The Full Transcript of Zohran Mamdani’s Victory Speech”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New...

Forms of abuela

pluralabuelas

Origin of abuela

Borrowed from Spanish abuela.

Questions about abuela

What does abuela mean?
Abuela means a Hispanic grandmother.
How do you use abuela in a sentence?
You say that to an abuela, and the most likely response will be “que?” followed by a quick “adios!”
What part of speech is abuela?
Abuela is a noun.
How do you pronounce abuela?
Abuela is pronounced /ɑˈbweɪlə/.
What is the plural of abuela?
The plural of abuela is abuelas.

Words near abuela in the dictionary

  1. abuccinating
  2. abucco
  3. abuccos
  4. abud
  5. abuden
  6. abuela
  7. abuelas
  8. abuelo
  9. abuelos
  10. Abughazaleh
  11. abugida

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: abuela (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-abuela.wav.

Cite this entry: “abuela.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/abuela. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.