Mexican
Noun pluralMexicans
PluralMexicans
- 1Relating to, originating in, or characteristic of the country of Mexico.
Their Mexican heritage is celebrated every year with food and music.
The Mexican economy depends heavily on trade with its northern neighbor.
- 2A person who is from the country of Mexico or who has Mexican ancestry.
As a proud Mexican, she flew her country's flag on Independence Day.
Thousands of Mexicans have built lives and businesses across the United States.
- 3Cooking in the style of Mexico or its offshoots, including both traditional dishes and Tex-Mex.
After a long week, nothing beats Mexican with plenty of fresh salsa.
The new place serves Mexican that leans more toward Tex-Mex than authentic Oaxacan cooking.
Note
A clipped use of the national adjective that works as an uncountable noun. People "go out for Mexican" with no article and no plural, the same way they say they feel like Chinese or Italian. Because it names a kind of meal, "a Mexican" would mean a person, not a dinner.
- 4The variety of the Spanish language spoken in Mexico.
He learned Mexican before relocating to Guadalajara for work.
Their Mexican carried the soft northern accent of Sonora.
Note
A label that comes from talk more than from grammar books. A man in Stan Steiner's La raza: the Mexican Americans (1970) says he "never learned to speak Spanish, but speak[s] Mexican fluently," treating the language of home as a tongue of its own. In the film Fury (2014), "talk Mexican" is a rebuke. In careful writing, Mexican Spanish is the clearer name.
- 5A derogatory term applied to any person from a Spanish-speaking country, regardless of whether they have any connection to Mexico.
The foreman lumped all the workers together as Mexicans, even the ones from Peru.
Calling a Guatemalan man a Mexican only showed his ignorance.
Note
A lumping that erases nationality: anyone from a Spanish-speaking country gets the one name. The same blur appeared in a Fox News graphic in 2019 that referred to "three Mexican countries," and the network apologized for it. This is US slang and it is offensive. When nationality matters, name the actual country, and keep Mexican for people with a real tie to Mexico.
- 6A person from either of the southern Australian states of New South Wales or Victoria.
He took some gentle teasing for being a Mexican, having grown up in Victoria.
Queenslanders joke that the Mexicans never stop complaining about the heat up north.
Similarsoutherner
Note
Seen from Queensland, the border moves north: everyone below it, New South Wales included, counts as a Mexican. It is the same joke as the Victorian nickname, so the word's reach depends on the speaker's home state. A New South Welshman can call a Victorian a Mexican and then be called one himself by a Queenslander.
- 7A person from the state of Victoria, in southern Australia.
She moved up from Melbourne, so her coworkers ribbed her as a Mexican.
A few Mexicans drove over from Ballarat for the match.
SimilarVictorian
Note
Australian joking slang, heard chiefly in New South Wales and Queensland. A Victorian becomes a "Mexican" because Victoria lies to the south, much as Mexico lies south of the US border. The joke is at a neighbor's expense, and its reach depends on where the speaker stands: the Queensland usage moves the line further north and takes in New South Wales too.
- 8A member of the Mexica, the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec people of central Mexico.
Spanish friars recorded that the Mexicans crowned a new ruler at Tenochtitlan.
The Aztecheſe, or Mexicans, were the laſt who arrived in Anahuac.
1782, review of Storia antica del Messico, in The Critical ReviewNote
The oldest meaning, and the one the word was built for: Spanish mexicano comes from Nahuatl mēxihcah, the plural of mēxihcatl, "a Mexica." In older English, "the Mexicans" are the Aztec people themselves. Joseph Hall uses it that way in 1660, and The Critical Review in 1782 writes "the Aztecheſe, or Mexicans." The sense is obsolete now, so write Mexica or Aztec, and read older uses with care.
- 9The language of the Aztec people, now usually known as Nahuatl.
Painala was in the Mexican province of Coatzacualco: she was accordingly able to speak Mexican.
1856, Arthur Helps, The Spanish Conquest in AmericaNote
The language took its name from the people. In Arthur Helps's The Spanish Conquest in America (1856), a woman from Coatzacualco "was accordingly able to speak Mexican," and that means Nahuatl. In modern speech the same phrase points to Mexico's Spanish. In writing about the Conquest, read it as the Indigenous language. Present-day writers simply say Nahuatl.
- 10Relating to the Mexica, the Aztec people who founded Tenochtitlan.
The Mexican empire dominated the central valley before the Spanish arrived.
Chroniclers detailed Mexican customs of warfare and tribute.
Note
In older histories, Mexican before a noun (Mexican empire, Mexican customs) points to the Aztec world, not the modern nation. The word's origin is told under the Aztec people. Modern writing uses Mexica or Aztec as the adjective and keeps Mexican for the country, so treat this use as obsolete.
- 11Relating to Nahuatl, the language spoken by the Aztec people.
The principal grain of Mexico, before the introduction of thoſe from Europe, was maize, in the Mexican language called tluolli, of which there were ſeveral kinds, different in ſize, weight, colour, and taſte.
1795, W. Winterbotham, An HistoricalNote
Old travel and natural-history writing uses "the Mexican language" to introduce a Nahuatl word. W. Winterbotham in 1795 says maize was "in the Mexican language called tluolli." The Eclectic Review of 1810 names "the Aztec or Mexican" as the language most widely spread in the region. Read such phrases as Nahuatl, the adjective used today.
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Origin
Borrowed from Spanish mexicano, from Nahuatl mēxihcah, the plural of mēxihcatl ("a Mexica"), with the ending -ano ("-an"). By surface analysis it is Mexico + -an, and it is a doublet of Mexicano.