Where does bato come from?
The sense of “guy or dude” is first seen f辞谤听产补迟辞听on Urban Dictionary in a post made in October, 2006.聽Vato is seen before that, in a post made in 2002. Either way, it’s clear …聽产补迟辞听辞谤听惫补迟辞听have been describing dudes in Spanish for a decent amount of time.
In fact, The San Diego Reader wrote an article describing聽产补迟辞听in 1992 … some time indeed. In it, they said “Bato聽can mean a guy, a Latin, a friend, or even be used instead of聽loco聽辞谤听chifladoto call somebody crazy in a complimentary way.”
So, is there a difference between聽产补迟辞听补苍诲听vato? Seems so.
Vato is a variation of bato鈥攖he result of both v and b sounding similar, and a shortening of the word chivato, which is rooted in street slang of the ’40s, meaning聽informant, or snitch in gang and crime life. But,聽惫补迟辞听has a bit of a rougher past than聽产补迟辞.听Because of it’s gang history, it has an implicit “bad boy” undercurrent to it. And,聽惫补迟辞听has a feminine counterpart:聽vata, which can be used to refer to prostitutes or a female who owes someone money.
叠补迟辞听is just a friendly term, used among male friends.
Examples of bato
Who uses bato?
Bato‘s聽implication is always friendly, and it’s used among male friends.
In some countries and regions, vato is聽used among friends, as in homeboy. In other cultures, it’s used as an expletive, an obscene label for a man, with a wide variety of implications. Despite, the negative implications,聽惫补迟辞听seems to be the more commonly used word (over bato).
It’s best to stick to bato, if you’re not a well-versed or native Spanish speaker or are unsure about the usage.
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of bato like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of bato that will help our users expand their word mastery.