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SPANISH LANGUAGE

REVEALED: The best new Spanish words added to the dictionary in 2022

Spain’s Royal Language Academy has officially added 3,000 words to the Spanish dictionary over the course of 2022. Here are 11 of the best you need to learn, with explanations and examples.

spain new words dictionary 2022
The term 'garciamarquiano' has been added to the Spanish dictionary to refer to something that is characteristic or reminiscent of the ‘magic realism’ writings of Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez. (Photo by Rafael Quiroz / AFP)

Mamitis: colloquial way of talking about the excessive attachment and favouritism a child has for their mother. Papitis is also used when referring to a dad, and there’s been some controversy as it hasn’t been included in the dictionary.

Example: 

Raúl tiene un serio caso de mamitis. No se quiere despegar de su madre.

Raúl has a serious case of ‘mumitis’. He doesn’t want to leave his mother’s side.

Micromachismo: A misogynistic microaggression. According to Oxfam, some examples of this are choosing pink for girls and blue for boys, for a man to always pay the bill, saying that women and men can’t be friends and not using inclusive language.

Example:

Irene Montero quiere acabar con los micromachismos en el trabajo.

Irene Montero wants to get rid of misogynistic microaggressions in the workplace.

Puntocom: The same as spelling out ‘dotcom’ in English. Although anglicisms are becoming more prevalent in Spanish tech talk, there are still words Spaniards prefer to translate, such as buscador for a search engine.

Example:

La búrbuja puntocom causó estragos en la bolsa.

The dot-com bubble caused havoc in the stock market.

Conspiranoia: A noun which is a combination of the Spanish words for conspiracy and paranoia, referring to the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. The adjective is conspiranoico/a

Example: 

Es bastante conspiranoico, cree que las torres gemelas las derrumbó la CIA.

He’s quite the conspiracy theorist, he thinks the Twin Towers were blown up by the CIA.

Garciamarquiano: Characteristic or reminiscent of the ‘magic realism’ writings of Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, similar to how Kafkaesque or Orwellian are used. Cortazariano, used to denote similarity with the work of Julio Cortázar, has also been added.

Example:

Es una situación garciamarquiana en la que no se distingue la realidad de la ficción.

It’s a ‘Garciamarquesque’ situation where truth can’t be told apart from fiction.

Rular: A colloquial verb used to say that something is working or moving.

Example:

Esto no rula, ¿seguro que no está roto?

This isn’t working, are you sure it isn’t broken?

Potar: A slang verb to say vomit, similar to saying puke or barf in English. There’s also the expression echar la pota. Pota is vomit as a noun.

Example:

¡Ni se te ocurra echar la pota en mi coche!

Don’t you dare puke in my car!

Portuñol: A combination of Portuguese and Spanish, similar to how Spanglish is used to refer to a mix of English and Spanish.

Example:

Yo la verdad que chapurreo el portugués, más bien hablo portuñol.

In all honesty I fumble through Portuguese, if anything I speak ‘Portuñol’.

Sesión golfa: ‘Naughty’ performance or screening at a theatre, cinema, nightclub or otherwise held after 1am and usually of an adult nature.

Example:

Puedes esperarte todo tipo de locuras durante la sesión golfa en la Sala X.

You can expect all kinds of madness during the naughty hour at the Sala X.

Gusa: A colloquial way of saying hunger. It could be derived from the expression matar el gusanillo, which means to take the edge off your hunger (although its literal translation is ‘to kill the worm’).

Example:

¡Qué gusa tengo! Estoy que me como un jabalí.

I’m so hungry! I could eat a wildbore. 

Cuarentañero: A forty-something person, cuarentañera to refer to a woman. How this wasn’t already in the Spanish dictionary we don’t know, as it’s common to also say veinteañero (twenty-something), treintañero (thirty-something), cincuentañero (fifty-something), sesentañero (sixty-something) and so on. 

Example:

Es una cuarentañera con tres hijos pero eso no le ha impedido ser jefa de una empresa.

She’s a forty-something woman with three kids but that hasn’t prevented her becoming a company boss.

Member comments

  1. Qué gusa tengo! Estoy que me como un jabalí.
    I’m so hungry! I could eat a wildbore.

    Is that similar to a “wild boar”? Or does it have a bigger hole in it…

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LEARNING SPANISH

¡Ojo! 14 very useful Spanish expressions with the word eye

They say the eyes never lie, and when it comes to the use of ‘ojo’ (eye) in Spanish there are plenty of everyday expressions which will help you become a true native speaker.

¡Ojo! 14 very useful Spanish expressions with the word eye

¡Ojo!: When Spaniards want to say ‘watch out!’ or ‘be careful!’, they say ¡ojo!

There’s also the idiom andarse con ojo, which implies watching your back or treading carefully. And to emphasise this even further, you can say andarse con cien ojos/mil ojos, to walk with 100 eyes or 1,000 eyes!

¡Ojo! El suelo está mojado. 

Watch out! The floor is wet.

Ándate con ojo con Jaime porque tiene fama de traidor. 

Watch your back with Jaime because he’s got a reputation for being a backstabber.

No pegar ojo: To not sleep a wink, used when you’ve been unable to sleep.

Me he pasado toda la noche en vela, no he pegado ojo. 

I’ve been up all night, I didn’t sleep a wink.

Costar un ojo de la cara: The same as saying in English ‘to cost an arm and a leg’, in the sense that something is very expensive or costly.  You can also use valer instead of costar, both mean ‘to cost’.

Pagarle los estudios a mi hijo me ha costado un ojo de la cara. 

Paying for my son’s studies has cost me an arm and a leg.

Mirar por el rabillo del ojo: To look sideways or out of the corner of your eye. 

No se inmutó pero no dejaba de mirarle por el rabillo del ojo.

He didn’t bat an eyelid but he wouldn’t stop looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

Tener ojo de lince: If you’ve got a very keen and observant eye, in English you say you have an eagle eye, but in Spanish you’d say you have a lynx eye. 

María tiene ojo de lince, no se le escapa ninguna. 

María has got a real eagle eye, she doesn’t miss a thing.

En un abrir y cerrar de ojos: Literally meaning in the time it takes to open or close your eyes, this expression is not too dissimilar to its English equivalent – in the blink of an eye – when something happens very quickly. 

En un abrir y cerrar de ojos el ladrón había robado las joyas.

In the blink of an eye the thief had stolen the jewels. 

Mirar con buenos ojos: To look upon someone or something favourably, to have a soft spot for something/someone or to have a positive outlook on something. 

El jefe te mira con buenos ojos aunque llegues tarde al trabajo.

The boss has a soft spot for you even if you’re late for work.

Ser el ojito derecho: If you’re someone’s ‘little right eye’, it means you’re the teacher’s pet. It doesn’t always have to apply to being a teacher’s favourite pupil as it can be used when referring to someone else’s preferred person. There’s also the expression la niña de sus ojos (the apple of somebody’s eye).

Margarita es el ojito derecho de la profe. 

Margarita is the teacher’s pet. 

A ojo: If you do something a ojo, it means you do it blindly or by eye or by guesswork, without knowing exactly.

Estoy calculando cuánta gente hay en la sala a ojo. 

I’m making a rough guess of how many people there are in the room.

Echarle un ojo a: ‘To throw an eye’ in Spanish means to check something out, to have a look at, to look over. It can also mean to keep an eye on or watch over someone or something.

Échale un ojo a este cuadro que he pintado. 

Have a look at this painting I’ve painted. 

Mal de ojo: Evil eye.

La gitana le echó un mal de ojo por no comprarle el romero. 

The gipsy woman cast an evil eye on her for not buying her rosemary. 

No tener ojos en la cara: ‘To not have eyes on one’s face’ actually means to not see something that’s obvious or to not pay attention or care to something. 

¿Cómo qué se ha perdido el niño? ¿Es que no tienes ojos en la cara?

What do you mean the boy is lost? Did you fall asleep at the wheel?

No quitar ojo: To stare intently at something or someone without fail. If it’s with desire, there’s also the expression comerse con los ojos a algo/alguien, to eat something or someone with the eyes.

La rubia no te quita ojo, chaval. 

The blonde girl won’t stop looking at you, man.

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