vato
noun
vato is a noun meaning “A Hispanic youth; a guy; a dude” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-A-T-O, and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of vato is vatos.
What does vato mean?
noun
- 1
A Hispanic youth; a guy; a dude.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of vato
- vatos plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is vato?
Vato appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 106,501st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does vato come from?
From Spanish vato, ultimately from chivato. Term is mostly used by people from northwest Mexico (Sinaloa, Sonora, Chihuahua, Baja California).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).