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coyote

coyote

28 9.1
A person who secretly takes people across a border for money
  • noun
  • /kaɪˈoʊti/
  • NSFW
translation icon : coyote
  • Many immigrants rely on a coyote to help them cross into the United States illegally.
  • smugglers known as coyotes
  • known as coyotes

So let's say you want to come to the US and I'm a coyote, I'm a smuggler.

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Examples

  • Why not just have one of the coyotes do it?

  • After paying a coyote thousands of dollars, they finally made it across the border.

  • You cross the border, you just pay, you know, coyote to, to bring you across the border.

  • Others are left on their own, with a cell phone to call the coyote when they arrive.

    Blog text (12)
  • "I can show you across the Rio Bravo," the coyote said.

    Fiction book (1996)
  • It's nothing anyone wants to do, buy forged papers, or even use a coyote.

    Academic text (2010)
  • Mr. Galindo, I need to warn you that even though it would be quicker and cheaper to have a coyote bring you back here, there would be legal consequences.

  • To evade detection by drones and virtual fences, coyotes are leading smaller parties through increasingly isolated and dangerous terrain.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Individuals with this immigration status are often involved as small-time smugglers or coyotes (Martinez, 2001; Urrea, 2004).

    Academic text (2007)
  • He warned his friend not to trust a coyote on the dangerous journey to America.

Compounds

coyote ugly
  • Slang
1 9.9

Feeling very unattractive and sorry after drinking or partying

9.2

A spreading evergreen shrub with small flowers that grows on dry hills in the southwestern United States

9.5

An evergreen bush with small clustered flowers that spreads in the southwestern United States

6.3

A nickname for the US state South Dakota referring to the coyote

Surface Forms

coyote singular
coyotes plural

Etymology

Coyote is also used for a person who smuggles people across a border because people compared these guides to the animal coyote, seen as clever and secretive and often moving at night, so the human guide took the animal's name.