pandejo en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /pænˈdeɪhoʊ/
Etymology
Likely borrowed from Spanish pandejo (see below), or formed in English from pandemic and Spanish pendejo (“contemptible person”). Attested from 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanings
-
(derogatory, neologism) One who is foolishly reckless around COVID-19.
It’ll happen until we, like these three people bravely did during their reckonings with the dreaded disease, begin to truly call out pandejo behavior. […] He does think we need to call out pandejos, but in a way that makes them “realize that we [Latinos] can take care of each other and pull through together anything, because we’ve done it before.”
2020 December 3, Gustavo Arellano, “Don’t be a ‘pandejo.’ Take the pandemic seriously”, in Los Angeles Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Feb 2021:This is infamously "pandejo" central — the home of pandemic pendejos, or blockheads.
2021 August 4, Gustavo Arellano, “At my wife's Santa Ana market, the masks have never come off”, in The Los Angeles Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 Sep 2021:As I shared then, he once was the king of pandejos — the Mexican Spanish term for covidiots.
2022 January 4, Gustavo Arellano, “We all need a pandemic-era hero in 2022”, in San Diego Union-Tribune, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 21 Jan 2026:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| pandejos | Number=Plur | lexicographic |