Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
Latin American

Latin American

33 2.1
A person who comes from Latin America
  • noun
  • /ˈlætɪn əˈmɛrɪkən/
translation icon : latinoamericano
  • Stella was one of the few Latin American specialists in women's sports medicine.
  • most Latin Americans
  • Latinos and Latin Americans
  • Latin Americans live

Examples

  • Her parents are Latin American, and she grew up speaking both Spanish and English.

  • Yet these are not deemed to be the correct views for a Latin American to hold.

  • There is still much to be done for the Latin American woman in general.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Working conditions have declined for most Latin American workers in the 1990s, as has trade union membership.

    Academic text (1999)

  • They're both Latin American men.

    The Night Crew (2015)

  • The store is filled with Latin American folk art, particularly masks that line the walls.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • Social work educators should increase their focus on cultural competence with a host of Latin American countries.

    Academic text (2008)

  • The third obstacle blocking development is the fragility of the Latin American commitment to democracy.

    Academic text (2011)

  • Marjorie Agosin is a poet and professor of Latin American literature at Wellesley College.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Bush consulted often with Latin American presidents and had begun to forge new bonds.

    Academic text (1991)

Synonyms

Latino
vsLatin American
34 2.9

A person born in Latin America or whose family comes from there

is gender-neutral and applies to any person from that region
Latinx
vsLatin American
  • Neologism
1 7.0

A person from Latin America described in a gender-neutral way

is a neutral origin description without explicit gender marking

Surface Forms

Latin American singular
Latin Americans plural

Morphology

Latin + American

The meaning 'a person from Latin America' is directly and compositionally derived from combining 'Latin' (relating to Latin-derived cultures) with 'American' (from the Americas); the phrase follows a regular adjective + noun pattern referring to regional identity. This construction is cross-linguistically common and therefore a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Latin American comes from the idea that many places in the Americas speak languages that come from Latin, like Spanish and Portuguese. So Latin American means a person 'from Latin America', or someone from those countries.