Dictionary

barrio en · NOUN

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish barrio, from Arabic بَرِّيّ (barriyy, “wild”).

Meanings

1. A municipality or subdivision of a municipality in Spanish America, and in Spain itself.
2. A slum on the periphery of a major city, or a low to middle-class neighborhood in a lesser city, in Venezuela or the Dominican Republic.
3. (Philippines) A rural barangay or neighborhood.
   • In the barrio, they talked excitedly about the wood-gatherer's discovery. There was so much pushing and quibbling over details that by the time the barrio had organized itself to set out for Salug to investigate, dusk had already fallen. 2008, Resil B. Mojares, “Beast in the Fields”, in Gémino H. Abad, editor, Upon Our Own Ground: Filipino short stories in English: 1956 to 1972, page 413:
4. (US, informal) An area or neighborhood in a US city inhabited predominantly by Spanish-speakers or people of Hispanic origin.
   • After World War II, its prospering working-class white residents moved to other, more upscale suburban developments, and by the 1950s the area had become an isolated ethnic enclave with its own barrio gang. 1993, Diego Vigil, “The Established Gang”, in Scott Cummings, Daniel J. Monti, editors, Gangs: The Origins and Impact of Contemporary Youth Gangs in the United States, page 98:
   • Mr. Jones and me, stumbling through the barrio 1993, “Mr. Jones”, performed by Counting Crows:

Forms

Deriveds

subbarrio · barriotic