cuero

What it means

1. 1.

   A prostitute; also, and far more commonly, any woman the speaker judges to sleep around. A serious insult with no male equivalent in use.

2. 2.

   Occasionally softened to mean a woman who goes out a great deal, but the harsher reading is always available and the listener chooses which one she heard.

Literally: hide, leather

Examples with translations

• No le diga' eso a la muchacha, e' una falta de respeto.

  Don't call that girl that, it's grossly disrespectful.

  Note: The likeliest sentence a visitor will actually hear containing the word is someone objecting to it.

• Se formó el lío porque la llamó cuero.

  The whole fight started because he called her a slag.

Where it comes from

The literal sense is animal hide. The metaphor — a woman reduced to a piece of skin for sale — is old and is shared with Cuban Spanish. Nothing about its history makes it milder than it sounds.