pinche

¹

[peen-chey]

adjective

1. damned; lousy; blasted.

   With all this self-promotion you sound like a pinche public radio station during a fund drive!

2. cheap or stingy.

adverb

1. damned; blasted (used as an intensifier before an adjective).

   They don't realize how pinche hard it is to learn to speak English.

noun

1. Sometimes Disparaging.,  a menial worker, such as one who works in a kitchen.

2. a cheap or stingy person; penny pincher; tightwad.

pinche

²

[peen-chey]

noun

1. a tamarin (Saguinus oedipus ) native to Colombia with a long, manelike tuft of white hair: now endangered.

Word History and Origins

Origin of pinche¹

First recorded in 1970–75; from Spanish, adjective and noun derivative of pinchar “to poke, prick,” variation (with influence of picar “to bite, sting”) of punchar “to punch,” from Vulgar Latin punctiāre (unrecorded), verb derivative of Latin pūnctus “a prick, sting”; puncture ( def. )

Origin of pinche²

First recorded in 1740–50; from French pinché, of uncertain origin

Example Sentences

But my parent’s generation — who, to this day, come back from the motherland lugging suitcases stuffed with local cheeses, edible seeds, chiles and candies — never needed any pinche lessons.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

But the pinche pandemic just doesn’t want to leave Latino life.

Read more on Los Angeles Times