güey

Spanish

Alternative forms

Etymology

Nonstandard pronunciation-spelling variant of buey (literally “ox”) (see that entry for more); this form thus represents a deshifting of /bw/ back to /ɡw/. Compare nonstandard güeno from bueno (“good”), agüelo from abuelo (“grandfather”), güelvo from vuelvo (“to return”), where /bwe/ becomes /ɡwe/. A similar phenomenon occurs in the dialectal pronunciation of Lithuanian buvai as /ɡwuei/.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): (spelling pronunciation) /ˈɡwei/ [ˈɡwei̯]
    • Syllabification: güey
  • IPA(key): (colloquial pronunciation) /ˈw̝ei/ [ˈw̝ei̯]
  • Rhymes: -ei

Noun

güey m (plural güeyes)

  1. (Mexico, colloquial slang) chump, punk, dumbass, idiot, jerk
    Synonyms: cabrón, tonto
  2. (Mexico, colloquial slang) dude, guy, buddy
    Synonyms: (Mexico) carnal, (Mexico) cuate, (Spain) tío, (Spain) tía; see also Thesaurus:tío
  3. (Rioplatense, Paraguay) Pronunciation spelling of buey.

Further reading
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