Word.ws English Dictionary

Tico

Tico adjective: costa Rican.

Adjective

Tico (not comparable)

  1. (slang) Costa Rican
    • October 1946, National Geographic
      The musical intonation and liberal use of diminutives make Tico Spanish particularly effective for expressing sentiment and affection.

Noun

Tico (plural Ticos)

  1. (slang) Costa Rican
    • Most of the people here are from the embassies. The Ticos—that's what the natives call themselves—come in the evening.1980, Leonard St. Clair, Obsessions

Forms of Tico

pluralTicos

Origin of Tico

From Spanish tico which arose from the frequent use of the diminutive suffix -tico in Costa Rica.

Questions about Tico

What does Tico mean?
Tico means costa Rican.
What part of speech is Tico?
Tico can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near Tico in the dictionary

  1. ticky-tacky
  2. ticlatone
  3. ticlike
  4. Ticlio
  5. ticlopidine
  6. Tico
  7. ticolubant
  8. Ticonderoga
  9. Ticonderogan
  10. Ticonderogans
  11. Ticos

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Tico (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.

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