gaucho

English - English

Definition of gaucho in English English dictionary

A cowboy of the South American pampas

A gaucho is a South American cowboy. gauchos a South American cowboy. Any of the nomadic and colourful horsemen of the Argentine and Uruguayan Pampas, who remain folk heroes famed for hardiness and lawlessness. Gauchos flourished from the mid 18th to the mid 19th century. At first they rounded up the herds of horses and cattle that roamed freely on the vast grasslands east of the Andes. In the early 19th century they fought in the armies that defeated the Spanish colonial regime and then for the caudillos who jockeyed for power after independence. Argentine writers have celebrated the gauchos, and gaucho literature is an important part of the Latin American cultural tradition

A member of an Indian population, somewhat affected by Spanish blood, in the archipelagoes off the Chilean coast

They live mostly by rearing cattle

{i} South American cowboy

One of the native inhabitants of the pampas, of Spanish-American descent

Related Terms

gaucho literature

Latin American poetic genre that imitates the payadas ("ballads") traditionally sung to guitar accompaniment by wandering gaucho minstrels of Argentina and Uruguay. By extension, the term includes the body of Latin American prose literature about the gaucho way of life and philosophy. Long a part of folk literature, gaucho lore became a subject of 19th-century Romantic verse, as well as prose that often explores themes of conflict between the old and the new

gauchos

plural form of gaucho

gauchos

Calf-length trousers with flared legs

El-Gaucho

chain of South-American restaurants (specializing in Bar-B-Q meats)

gauchos

plural of gaucho

gauchos

{i} wide calf-length pants similar to those worn by South American ranchers (popular during the 1970s)

Hyphenation

gau·cho

Turkish pronunciation

gauçō

Pronunciation

/ˈgouʧō/ /ˈɡaʊʧoʊ/

Etymology

[ 'gau-(")chO ] (noun.) 1824. From Quechua huachu (“vagabond”).