Cubaalmendrón
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.
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Cuba
Cuban Slang for Everyday Things
15 Cuban slang terms for everyday things, each with its meaning, how it is pronounced and an example of it in use.
Informal names for ordinary things and ordinary activities — the domestic layer of slang that rarely makes phrasebooks but comes up constantly.
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.
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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.
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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.
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Use with care
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.
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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.
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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.
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Use with care
guagua
noun · Colloquial · WAH-wah
A bus. The only word most Cubans use; autobús sounds like a textbook and ómnibus like a timetable.
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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.
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jama
noun, verb · Informal · HAH-mah
Food, grub. Hay jama — there's food, said as good news.
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luchar
verb, noun · Colloquial · loo-CHAR
To hustle: to get by through informal work, trading, favours and improvisation. Estar en la lucha is the standard answer to 'how are things?' and means, roughly, surviving.
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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.
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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.
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resolver
verb · Colloquial · reh-sol-VEHR
To get hold of something scarce by informal means — through a contact, a swap, a diverted state supply. The verb is used absolutely, with no object, and the absence of an object is the point: nobody asks how.
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yuma
noun, adjective · Informal · YOO-mah
A foreigner, especially a white foreigner from a rich country. Originally specific to Americans, now applied to any tourist who looks like one.
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