ombe

What it means

1. 1.

   Oh come on; man alive. A discourse particle of remonstration, dropped at the front of a sentence to signal that the speaker has had enough.

2. 2.

   Also used to soften an instruction into a plea: 'ombe, ayúdame con esto'.

3. 3.

   Said to nobody in particular it is closer to a sigh than to a word, and is one of the reliable markers of an older or more rural speaker.

Examples with translations

• ¡Ombe, déjame quieto!

  Oh, leave me alone!

• Ombe, eso no se hace así.

  Come on now, that's not how you do it.

Where it comes from

From hombre — the h was never pronounced and the r has fallen away, leaving a two-syllable particle with no remaining connection to 'man'. Women say it to women as readily as men say it to men.

Other forms

Spellings and variants:

hombe, ombre