Led by linguist Luis Fernando Lara, El Colegio de México has published a new edition of the Mexican Spanish Dictionarywith almost 34 thousand entries used by millions of speakers who includes the words ‘chairo’ and ‘perreo’.
And it is that language is a living entity, and as such it changes constantly, It is multiform because obeys localisms and regional idiomsand it changes constantly because it is subject, among other things, to the temperaments of those who speak it.
That is why there are new words that dictionaries collect from time to time and other words are discarded due to lack of use. Below are some that have been included in this new edition.
What does chairo mean, according to the Mexican Spanish Dictionary?
What real is a noun and a offensive adjective which is defined as the “person who defends social and political causes against the ideologies of the right, but who is attributed a lack of true commitment to what he claims to defend.”
Furthermore, the Mexican Spanish Dictionary indica huachicoleo It is a masculine noun that means “act and practice of stealing fuel from the pipelines that carry it,” from which other words such as huachicoleros and huachicol are derived.
To the michelada defines it as a feminine noun for beer to which lemon and salt are added and which is served in a frosted jar or glass. They are among the nearly 34 thousand articles or words that belong to the speech of Mexicans.
Y twerking points it out as “a dance performed by a man and a woman, putting their bodies very close together and shaking their hips at the same time”, although this word has already been included since 2024 by the RAE with the same meaning.
This very extensive vocabulary that includes other words that are very much ours, such as argüende, chípil, chivear, despampanante, güero, malacopa, perreo, rasposo, revictimizar, taquear, zangano and zangolotear, among many more, is in the Spanish Dictionary of Mexico, whose edition updated has just been published in printed format by El Colegio de México, an institution that, from the Center for Linguistic and Literary Studies, promotes this research and registration project directed, for more than 50 years, by the doctor in linguistics and literature, Luis Fernando. Lara.
Spanish is enriched
He states that with this project that accounts for the richness of Spanish and the historical experience of Mexico through its literature, cinematography, popular culture, academia and cultured language, “We want to give back to Mexican Spanish speakers the vocabulary of their own language, as it is used, so that they may know and appreciate it better.”
Emeritus researcher at El Colegio de México, and member of El Colegio Nacional, Lara assures that 12 years after the first edition, they have just published the second edition of the Spanish Dictionary of Mexico, which has some corrections, but above all it adds up to just over 8 thousand new articles or words that correspond, for the most part, to words documented in the Corpus of Contemporary Mexican Spanish (1921-1974), which is the basis of this ambitious project that has sought to record the Mexican Spanish that has been spoken in Mexico for 100 years, from the moment in which a national press was produced, a national radio, and since the first novel of the Mexican Revolution appeared, Los debajos, by Mariano Azuela, but that reaches down to the Spanish we speak today.
“The fact that we can now present to the public this second edition of the dictionary that already reaches 34 thousand articles, It means giving Mexicans back their own language and thus legitimizing it; That is, they are not all the time thinking ‘oh, will this be said well?’, ‘what will the Academy say about this?’, but rather they say ‘I can trust my dictionary and I can make my own normative decisions.’
That is what we have searched for and we will continue searching because the work of the dictionary does not end, we will always continue working on it.
We have the great advantage that El Colegio de México knows how to sustain long-term research, something that is not very common either in Mexico or in other Spanish-speaking countries,” Lara states in an interview.
34 thousand words
The director of the Dictionary assures that They record a lot of vocabulary of cultured tradition, which is the vocabulary that we use in intellectual, academic life and in journalism, but it also records a lot of vocabulary from popular tradition, which is where the deepest part of our feelings as Mexicans is.
But something that gives him great pride is that this edition of almost 2,060 pages printed on Bible paper with a font designed especially for the dictionary, is that those about 34 thousand words or original entries from Mexican Spanish it has more than 77 thousand meanings and above all —and that is the great pride— It has many examples of its use.
“We have many examples, which is something that differentiates us from academic dictionaries, many examples that are real, not invented. Examples taken from our writers, from the press, from the talk of a bricklayer or a comedian and that helps to understand our language as something really endearing and not rigid; That is to say, it does not give us a pompous or solemn idea of the language, but rather it tells us ‘see this richness’ and I believe that the printed dictionary is what it provides.”
Words worn by politics
Luis Fernando Lara recognizes that the dozens of writers, linguists, lexicographers, and students who have participated in the project over more than half a century, have a great vocation.
“Writing a dictionary is not very common, it requires a certain taste and it is what I appreciate most about many of those who have worked on the project and those who continue working, it really is a pleasure, it is an ambition. Yes, I think we have the ambition to make a very good dictionary, that is our ambition despite the fact that our former president says that one should not be an aspirationist.”
Speaking of politics, Lara also points out that there are words that sometimes resonate across times, there are words that go away and others that staythere are words that politics wears out from using them so much.
“There are words that fade from being used so much. There are many cases of those, of words that are from the period or for example that are from six-year periods, let’s say, I imagine What will happen with the word chairo, What will happen in the coming years, will we continue talking about the chairos or will we no longer continue talking? For example, the huachicol appeared and apparently came to stayNow I also read in the press that they talk about huachicoleo of water, not only of oil or gasoline. But there will be words that have very precise dates of appearance and that then little by little tend to be forgotten, although we do not stop writing them down because it is part of the treasure of our language”, says Luis Fernando Lara.
With “Ch” for chelero and charolear
Contrary to the Dictionary of the Spanish Language published by the Royal Academy of Language, and even the Dictionary of Mexicanisms. Own and shared, edited by the Mexican Academy of Language itself, to which Luis Fernando Lara also belongs, the Mexican Spanish Dictionary includes an entry for articles that group together words that begin with the letter Ch, where words abound many Mexicans like cháchara, chafa, chahuistle, chalán, chamoyada, chamuscar, chanfle, chante, chapulinearcharamusca, charanda, charolearcharrapastroso, chascarrillo, chaviza, chayoterochelear, chelerochemo, chichicuilote, chimeco y chimiscolear.
Lara remembers that in this work of more than five decades – which includes a digital version that they update every six months and that already almost reaches 36 thousand words or entries, in addition to search tools, doubts and now even the conjugation of verbs – he has There have been many words that have cost them a lot of work due to the lack of data.
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“Although we have our two Corpus of contemporary Mexican Spanish and we also take advantage of the Corpus of the Spanish Academy, there still come times when we do not find enough data to do the analysis, when the word remains absolutely opaque and we need more material to analyze. There are times when we struggle for days or weeks trying to find the material to make a correct and complete definition. Although it is true that when we find them it also gives us great satisfaction to be able to prepare the article,” says the author of Minimum History of the Spanish Language.
And another of our great pride is the materials that have been derived from the Mexican Spanish Dictionary. And that story continues to be told
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The term **”chairo”** in the context of Mexican Spanish refers to a noun and an offensive adjective that describes a person who typically defends social and political causes opposing right-wing ideologies. However, this term is often used derogatorily to suggest that such individuals lack genuine commitment to the ideals they profess to support.
This definition illustrates how language can reflect social dynamics and political contexts, emphasizing the complexities involved in certain terms and their usage within specific cultural spheres. In addition to “chairo,” the Mexican Spanish Dictionary elaborates on various other contemporary terms, highlighting the richness and evolution of the Spanish language as used in Mexico.
