Spanglish

American

[spang-glish, -lish] / ˈspæŋ glɪʃ, -lɪʃ /

noun

Spanish spoken with a large admixture of English, especially American, words and expressions.

Spanglish British

/ ˈspæŋɡlɪʃ /

noun

a variety of English heavily influenced by Spanish, commonly spoken in US Hispanic communities

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of Spanglish

1965–70; blend of Spanish and English

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.

See Examples For:

Spanglish

And with him, even though he could hear me sometimes, doing it in Spanglish or trying to get to it, he just was committed.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2025

That means Hernández is wearing the singer's signature attire, using a mix of Spanglish and radiating the superstar’s coolness.

From Salon ● Nov. 9, 2024

Clerks switched between English and Spanish and Spanglish.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2024

The same year, he cocreated and starred in the Spanglish comedy series “Los Espookys,” also on HBO.

From New York Times ● Jun. 7, 2024

We spoke in Spanglish, a combination of English and Spanish in which we hopped from one language to the other depending on which word came first.

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