dato

[ dah-toh; Spanish dah-taw ]

noun,plural da·tos [dah-tohz; Spanish dah-taws]. /ˈdɑ toʊz; Spanish ˈdɑ tɔs/.
  1. the headman of a barrio or of a Malay tribe.

Origin of dato

1
First recorded in 1610–20 as Datoe; partly from Malay datu, datto “ruler, chief,” and its variant datok, datuk “grandfather, elder,” partly from Indonesian datuk “head of the family, chieftain”; akin to datu

Words Nearby dato

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How to use dato in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for dato

dato

/ (ˈdɑːtəʊ) /


nounplural -tos
  1. the chief of any of certain Muslim tribes in the Philippine Islands

Origin of dato

1
C19: from Spanish, ultimately from Malay dato' grandfather

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