mestizo

American  

[me-stee-zoh, mi-] / mɛˈsti zoʊ, mɪ- /

noun

mestizos, plural mestizoes plural

1. a person of mixed racial or ethnic ancestry, especially, in Latin America, of mixed Indigenous and European descent or, in the Philippines, of mixed Indigenous and foreign descent.

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mestizo British  

/ mɛˈstiːzə, mɛˈstiːzəʊ, mɪ- /

noun

1. a person of mixed parentage, esp the offspring of a Spanish American and an American Indian

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• mestiza
  noun

Inflected Forms

noun

• mestizos
  plural
• mestizoes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of mestizo

First recorded in 1580–90; from Spanish, noun use of adjective mestizo, from Vulgar Latin mixtīcius (unrecorded) “mixed”

Compare meaning

How does mestizo compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• mestizo vs. mulatto

Explanation

In Latin America, someone with both indigenous and European ancestry is described as mestizo. In Mexico, the majority of people are mestizos. Mestizo, a Spanish word that's rooted in the Latin mixtus, or "mixed," originally meant "person of mixed Spanish and Amerindian parentage." Though some groups of Latin Americans still employ this word to describe their own combined heritage, it's becoming less common for people with mixed ancestry to use the term. Approximately one third of people identifying as Hispanic in the U.S. also describe themselves as mestizo.

Example Sentences

Márquez’s talk about race is disruptive in a country that for generations identified its people as sharing a single mixed race, called Mestizo.

From Washington Post • May 21, 2022

Mestizo owner Jim Urdiales is also adjusting to a higher percentage of to-go orders, largely through Waitr.

From Washington Times • May 12, 2018

“The White Boy Shuffle” was published at the high point of nineteen-nineties multiculturalism—Gunnar, the ultimate “cultural mulatto,” attends a P.C.-obsessed school called Mestizo Mulatto Mongrel Elementary—and the novel was knowingly inauthentic.

From The New Yorker • Mar. 31, 2015

Mestizo: person of mixed Spanish and Indian blood, as are most Mexican Americans.

From Time Magazine Archive

The Indian and Mestizo girls bind it in their hair, and call it "la vegessima," "the beautiful."

From The Naturalist in Nicaragua by Belt, Thomas