Word.ws English Dictionary

latino

Syllables: La·ti·noUK/ləˈtiːnəʊ//ləˈtinoʊ/

latino is the alternative letter-case form of Latino.

Adjective capitalized: Latino

Latino (not comparable)

  1. (US) Of Latin American descent, Hispanic.
    • She called Ottinger a "tool" of the business community and Lopez a "box checker,” apparently meaning that he was only nominally Latino and that he had acted in a way that was detrimental to the interests of Latinos.2013, Richard Lee Colvin, Tilting at Windmills

Noun capitalized: Latino

Latino (plural Latinos)

  1. A person of a country that predominantly speaks a language that derives from the Latin language.
  2. (US) A person, especially a male, from Latin America: contraction of latinoamericano. (Compare Latina.)
    • Latinos have quickly become the largest ethnic minority in the United States.
    • Certainly, the activists in this study believe that Latinos face antibrown racism and consider racial justice for Latinos to be an increasingly important part of America's racial justice agenda.2010, Mark R. Warren, Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 11

Forms of latino

plurallatinos
pluralLatinos

Origin of latino

American English, first attested in the 1960s for a person of Spanish-speaking or Latin American ancestry (notably Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban), originally an (informal) shortened form of Spanish latinoamericano (“Latin American”, adjective). Its appearance probably coincided with the colloquial use of Anglo (for a person of British or White US descent) and Afro (for a person of Black or African US descent).

Words formed from latino

Phrases with latino

Questions about latino

What does latino mean?
Latino means of Latin American descent, Hispanic.
What is latino the alternative letter-case form of?
Latino is the alternative letter-case form of Latino.
What part of speech is latino?
Latino can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce latino?
Latino is pronounced /ləˈtiːnəʊ/ (UK).

Words near latino in the dictionary

  1. latinizes
  2. latinizing
  3. Latinless
  4. Latinly
  5. Latinness
  6. latino
  7. Latino Sine Flexione
  8. Latino-
  9. Latino-Faliscan
  10. Latino-Punic
  11. Latino/a

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: latino (page history and authors); Latino (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)-Flame, not lame-Latino.wav.

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