grin.go (gring?go) noun
plural grin.gos
Offensive Slang.
Used as a disparaging term for a foreigner in Latin America, especially
an American or English person.

[Spanish, foreign, foreign language, gibberish, probably alteration of griego, Greek, from Latin Graecus. See Greek.]

Word History: The word gringo is an offensive term in Latin America for a foreigner, particularly an American or English person. But the word existed in Spanish before this particular sense came into being. In fact, gringo may be an alteration of the word griego, the Spanish development of Latin Graecus,"Greek."Griego first meant "Greek, Grecian," as an adjective and "Greek, Greek language," as a noun. The saying "It's Greek to me" exists in Spanish, as it does in English, and helps us understand why griego came to mean "unintelligible language" and perhaps, by further extension of this idea, "stranger, that is, one who speaks a foreign language." The altered form gringo lost touch with Greek but has the senses "unintelligible language,""foreigner, especially an English person," and in Latin America, "North American or Britisher." Its first recorded English use (1849) is in John Woodhouse Audubon's Western Journal:"We were hooted and shouted at as we passed through, and called 'Gringoes.'"

Excerpted from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition Copyright C 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V., further reproduction and distribution restricted in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

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