barrio
Americannoun
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(in Spain and countries colonized by Spain) one of the divisions into which a town or city, together with the contiguous rural territory, is divided.
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a part of a large U.S. city, especially a crowded inner-city area, inhabited chiefly by a Spanish-speaking population.
noun
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a Spanish-speaking quarter in a town or city, esp in the US
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a Spanish-speaking community
Etymology
Origin of barrio
First recorded in 1890–95; from Spanish: literally, “district, neighborhood,” from Arabic barrī “of open country” (equivalent to barr “outside, open country” + -i adjective suffix) + -o Spanish noun suffix
Explanation
In the U.S., a barrio is the neighborhood where most people speak Spanish. For example, in New York, Spanish Harlem is also called El Barrio. Outside the U.S., barrio refers to a district in Spain or a Spanish-speaking country. The word barrio means "neighborhood" in Spanish, and in most Spanish-speaking places, that's exactly what it means. In Cuba and Spain, barrios are official divisions of municipalities. But in New York, Los Angeles, Tucson, Miami, and other U.S. cities, a barrio isn’t an official district, it’s just the neighborhood where Spanish speakers settled and/or still live.
Vocabulary lists containing barrio
The Poet X
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Mexico - Introductory
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Mexico - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In that same barrio, Flores raised three children with her first husband, Walter Gavidia, a police detective.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 29, 2026
It’s a charming barrio, and it’s been under siege, like many other neighborhoods in the Windy City.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 9, 2025
It was a tough start though as he left his family's home in a barrio in Colombia's second-largest city Medellin to pursue that dream.
From BBC • Sep. 30, 2024
She also made attempts to pass herself and her children off as Spanish or French as they moved from barrio to barrio, living what Mr. Belafonte would call an “underground life.”
From Washington Post • Apr. 25, 2023
On the days he worked, Papi left the house before dawn and sometimes joked that he woke the roosters to sing the barrio awake.
From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
