Cuba · Cuban Spanishaché
noun · Informal · ah-CHEH
Good fortune, blessing, the invisible charge that makes things go well for someone. Tener aché is to be lucky in a way that looks slightly supernatural.
+2 more senses
Cuba · Cuban Spanish
Cuban Slang
Cuban Spanish has been shaped by three forces that no other variety combines. The first is the Afro-Cuban substrate: words carried over in the ritual languages of Santería and of the Abakuá societies — asere, aché, bembé, ambia — which moved outward from religious and street use into ordinary speech, some of them only in the last forty years. The second is the Revolution and the economic collapse that followed it, which generated an entire working vocabulary for scarcity: resolver, luchar, por la izquierda, sociolismo, el paquete. These are not colourful expressions bolted onto the language; they are the verbs Cubans use to describe what they did this morning. The third is the diaspora, which took a 1960s snapshot of the island's speech to Miami and then kept developing it separately, so that some words on this list are alive in both places and a few — gusano above all — mean opposite things depending on which side of the Florida Straits you are standing.
What trips outsiders up is mostly register and politics rather than vocabulary. Cuban speech is phonetically fast and heavily clipped — final consonants and whole syllables disappear — and it is far coarser in ordinary company than Mexican or Colombian Spanish, so a visitor calibrated to those varieties will consistently misjudge how hard a word lands. Several of the entries below are also politically weighted: chivatón, gusano and pincho are not neutral descriptions, and using them casually will tell a Cuban something about you that you may not have meant to say. Where a term is island-only, diaspora-only, or dangerous to repeat, we say so.
50 terms, each with definitions and worked examples.
By topic
Each page below collects every Cuban term we have on one subject, side by side.
Start with these
The terms below carry the most usage detail — register, origin and the situations where they go wrong. They are the ones worth reading in full before the rest.
All Cuban slang A–Z
50 terms
Terms beginning with A
almendrón
noun · Informal · ahl-men-DROHN
One of the pre-1960 American cars that work as fixed-route shared taxis. You flag it down, say where you are going, and pay a flat fare to share the back seat with strangers.
+1 more sense
alumbrón
noun · Informal · ah-loom-BROHN
The brief stretch when the electricity is actually on. A sarcastic coinage that inverts apagón, 'blackout': if the power is off most of the day, the notable event is the light, not the dark.
+1 more sense
ambia
noun · Informal · AHM-byah
Friend, brother. Markedly street: it places the speaker in the world of the barrio, the Abakuá lodge or the prison yard in a way that asere no longer does.
+1 more sense
asere
noun, interjection · Informal · ah-SEH-reh
Mate, bro, buddy. The single most recognisably Cuban form of address, used to open a sentence, to close one, or as the whole sentence.
+1 more sense
Terms beginning with B
balsero
noun · Colloquial · bahl-SEH-roh
Someone who leaves Cuba by sea on an improvised raft or boat. Used descriptively rather than pejoratively, including by the people it describes.
+1 more sense
bembé
noun · Informal · bem-BEH
A drumming celebration held for the orishas in the Lucumí religious tradition: batá drums, singing, dancing, food, and possession. This is the primary and literal sense.
+1 more sense
Use with care
berro
noun · Informal · BEH-rroh
A fit of rage. Coger un berro is to lose your temper, comprehensively and visibly.
+1 more sense
botella
noun, idiom · Colloquial · boh-TEH-yah
A lift, a ride. Pedir botella is to hitchhike — a normal, organised part of Cuban transport rather than an adventure, with state officials at some junctions obliged to stop vehicles for waiting passengers.
+1 more sense
brutal
adjective · Informal · broo-TAHL
Brilliant, amazing, outstanding. The most common clean superlative in Cuban speech, and the one you can safely use in front of anyone.
+1 more sense
Terms beginning with C
¡coño!
interjection · Vulgar · KOH-nyoh
Damn! Bloody hell! The general-purpose Cuban exclamation, for surprise, pain, delight, exasperation and emphasis alike. Its frequency in ordinary Cuban speech is far higher than the literal translation suggests.
+2 more senses
Use with care
candela
noun, adjective · Colloquial · kahn-DEH-lah
Estar en candela: to be in serious trouble, or for a situation to be dire. Applied to a person, a marriage, the economy or the weather.
+2 more senses
Use with care
cheo
adjective · Informal · CHEH-oh
Tacky, naff, corny. Of clothes, music, a chat-up line or a party — anything that is trying to be stylish and failing.
+1 more sense
chico
interjection, noun · Colloquial · CHEE-koh
A vocative particle dropped into speech to soften, appeal or mildly remonstrate — roughly 'mate', 'love' or 'come on now'. The feminine chica works the same way.
+2 more senses
chispa 'e tren
noun · Colloquial · CHEES-pah eh TREN
Home-distilled rotgut spirit, sold illegally by the bottle. Rough, strong and occasionally dangerous, since the raw material is whatever was available.
+1 more sense
Use with care
chivatón
noun · Colloquial · chee-vah-TOHN
An informer. In Cuba this is not a playground word: it means someone who reports neighbours or colleagues to the authorities, typically through the block committee, and it is about the heaviest social accusation that can be made in ordinary conversation.
+1 more sense
Use with care
comemierda
noun, adjective · Vulgar · koh-meh-MYEHR-dah
A pretentious fool: someone who puts on airs, stands on ceremony, or thinks they are above the people around them. This snobbery sense is the primary one in Cuba and is what separates it from the same word elsewhere.
+1 more sense
Use with care
Terms beginning with D
dale
interjection, phrase · Informal · DAH-leh
Go on, go ahead, okay. The default Cuban agreement particle — it accepts a proposal, ends a phone call and gives permission, depending on intonation alone.
+2 more senses
de pinga
adjective, phrase · Vulgar · deh PEENG-gah
Superb, outstanding. Está de pinga about a film, a meal or a party is high praise.
+2 more senses
Use with care
descarga
noun, verb · Informal · des-KAR-gah
A jam session: musicians playing together without a set arrangement. The term is Cuban and gave its name to a whole recorded genre in the 1950s.
+2 more senses
Terms beginning with E
echar un pie
idiom, phrase · Informal · eh-CHAR oon PYEH
To dance — and specifically to go and dance now, with the person you are talking to. The standard Cuban invitation, and considerably less formal than bailar.
+1 more sense
el paquete
noun · Informal · el pah-KEH-teh
El paquete semanal: a terabyte of films, series, music, apps, magazines and classified ads, compiled weekly and distributed hand to hand on hard drives and memory sticks. For years it was how most Cubans consumed media, in a country with almost no home internet.
+1 more sense
estar en talla
phrase, idiom · Informal · es-TAR en TAH-yah
To be on point: sharp, well turned out, in the know, up to the standard the situation demands.
+1 more sense
Terms beginning with F
friki
noun, adjective · Informal · FREE-kee
A rocker or metalhead — long hair, black shirts, imported cassettes. In Cuba this names a specific subculture that was harassed by the police through the 1980s and 90s, not merely a person with unusual tastes.
+1 more sense
fruta bomba
noun · Colloquial · FROO-tah BOM-bah
Papaya. The fruit is called this in Havana and the west of the island because papaya is a coarse word for the vulva, and asking for one in a market will get you laughed at.
+1 more sense
Use with care
fula
noun, adjective · Informal · FOO-lah
The US dollar, and by extension hard currency in general. Cien fula is a hundred dollars.
+1 more sense
Terms beginning with G
guagua
noun · Colloquial · WAH-wah
A bus. The only word most Cubans use; autobús sounds like a textbook and ómnibus like a timetable.
+1 more sense
guapo
noun, adjective · Colloquial · GWAH-poh
A tough, a bully, someone who throws his weight around and is looking for a fight. Not 'handsome' — this is the standing trap for Spanish speakers arriving from elsewhere.
+1 more sense
Use with care
gusano
noun · Colloquial · goo-SAH-noh
A counter-revolutionary; someone who left Cuba, or who wants to. In official and pro-government mouths it is a straightforward political insult.
+1 more sense
Use with care
Terms beginning with J
jaba
noun · Colloquial · HAH-bah
A bag — specifically the plastic carrier bag, which in Cuba is a reusable possession rather than something you throw away. The diminutive jabita is at least as common.
+1 more sense
jama
noun, verb · Informal · HAH-mah
Food, grub. Hay jama — there's food, said as good news.
+1 more sense
jamonear
verb · Vulgar · hah-moh-neh-AR
To grope someone in a crowd — on a packed bus, in a queue, at a concert — exploiting the press of bodies. The noun jamonero names the man who does it.
+1 more sense
Use with care
jeva
noun · Informal · HEH-vah
A girlfriend. Mi jeva is the ordinary way a young Cuban man refers to the woman he is with.
+2 more senses
jinetera
noun · Colloquial · hee-neh-TEH-rah
A woman who forms relationships with foreign tourists for material benefit. The term deliberately blurs sex work, a hustle and an actual relationship, because in practice the categories blurred.
+2 more senses
Use with care
Terms beginning with L
Terms beginning with M
Terms beginning with N
Terms beginning with P
paladar
noun · Informal · pah-lah-DAR
A privately run restaurant, originally one operating out of the owner's home. The word is now used of every private restaurant in Cuba, including large and expensive ones.
+1 more sense
palestino
noun, adjective · Colloquial · pah-les-TEE-noh
A Cuban from the eastern provinces who has moved to Havana. Used by habaneros, condescendingly, about internal migrants — the standing joke being that they are people without a homeland who cannot be sent back.
+1 more sense
Use with care
pincha
noun, verb · Informal · PEEN-chah
A job, work, the place you go in the morning. Voy pa' la pincha — I'm off to work.
+1 more sense
pincho
noun · Colloquial · PEEN-choh
A boss, a senior official, someone with a state post and the privileges that come with it. Said with resentment far more often than respect.
+1 more sense
Use with care
por la izquierda
phrase, idiom · Colloquial · por lah ees-KYEHR-dah
On the black market; off the books; obtained or done without official authorisation. Comprar por la izquierda is to buy from someone who is not supposed to be selling.
+1 more sense
Terms beginning with Q
Terms beginning with R
Terms beginning with S
singao
noun, adjective · Vulgar · seen-GOW
Bastard, son of a bitch. The strongest everyday personal insult in Cuban Spanish and a genuine fighting word between strangers.
+1 more sense
Use with care
socio
noun · Informal · SOH-syoh
Mate, pal. Both a form of address and a way of referring to a friend, with a strong implication of practical mutual usefulness — a socio is someone who gets things for you.
+1 more sense
sociolismo
noun · Colloquial · soh-syoh-LEES-moh
The system of getting things done through personal contacts rather than official channels. A pun that names a real institution: in practice most Cubans' access to goods runs through it.
+1 more sense
Use with care
Terms beginning with T
templar
verb · Vulgar · tem-PLAR
To have sex. The everyday Cuban verb for it: coarse but not the coarsest, roughly where 'to shag' sits in British English.
+1 more sense
Use with care
titimanía
noun · Colloquial · tee-tee-mah-NEE-ah
A middle-aged man's compulsion to pursue much younger women. Mocking rather than condemnatory, and usually said about a man by his friends.
+1 more sense
Use with care