pinche

¹ American  

[peen-chey] / ˈpin tʃeɪ /

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.

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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 American  

[peen-chey] / ˈpin tʃeɪ /

noun

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

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Etymology

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

“Pinche Miss Margie! You scared me!”

From Los Angeles Times

When Landau appeared on the The Pinche Gringo Show!, he sported what he called an “Austin Powers jacket” complete with green paisleys, joking that he needed to be “hip” for the audience.

From Slate

As they reckon with Vidalia’s den of secrets and the future of the dive bar she left behind, they cross paths with characters such as Mari — “La Pinche Chinche” — a young Chicana activist fighting gentrification in Boyle Heights.

From Washington Post

“What I get really excited about is that now in the archetype of the world, there’s a Pinche Chinche, there’s an Eddy. You can look to them as you’re pitching a show and say, ‘Oh, they’re kind of like Eddy from Vida.’

From Washington Post

And he was preceded onstage by a pair of charming Los Angeles drag queens, Meatball and Pinche, whose act included the hurling of several McDonald’s cheeseburgers into the crowd.

From Los Angeles Times