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cativo

Spanish, noun

cativo is spelled C-A-T-I-V-O (6 letters) and appears about once in every 59 million words in written Spanish, the 268,459th most frequent Spanish word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Cativo is a Spanish masculine noun meaning “Prioria copaifera, a tree of the American tropics” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is also a first-person singular present indicative of cativar. With an accent, cativó is a different word: “third-person singular preterite indicative of cativar”. The Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario) defines it as “(Prioria copaifera) Árbol perteneciente a la familia de las fabáceas, que puede llegar a los 40m de altura…”.

What does cativo mean in English?

noun

  1. 1

    masculinePrioria copaifera, a tree of the American tropics.

verb

  1. 1

    first-person singular present indicative of cativar

verb

as cativó
  1. 1

    third-person singular preterite indicative of cativar

Source: English Wiktionary, Spanish section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How Spanish dictionaries define it

adjective: 1. Variante anticuada de cautivo (privado de la libertad). 2. Malo, infeliz, desgraciado. 3. Que carece de las cualidades positivas que se le atribuyen por prestigio. 4. De muy corta edad.

noun: 1. (Prioria copaifera) Árbol perteneciente a la familia de las fabáceas, que puede llegar a los 40m de altura, de corteza color pardo, hojas elípticas, flores de tonos cercanos al blanco y fruto en forma de legumbre, también de color pardo. Su madera tiene usos industriales.

The definition in the Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario), in Spanish.

Source: Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.

Forms of cativo

  • cativos plural
  • cativa feminine
  • cativas feminine plural

Source: English Wiktionary and Spanish Wiktionary (Wikcionario) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).

How common is cativo in Spanish?

cativo appears about once in every 59 million words in written Spanish.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

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