guapo

What it means

1. 1.

   A tough, a bully, someone who throws his weight around and is looking for a fight. Not 'handsome' — this is the standing trap for Spanish speakers arriving from elsewhere.

2. 2.

   Hacerse el guapo: to act hard, to square up. Almost always said disapprovingly.

Examples with translations

• No te hagas el guapo conmigo.

  Don't come the tough guy with me.

• En ese barrio hay cuatro guapos que se creen dueños de la esquina.

  In that neighbourhood there are four hard men who think they own the corner.

Where it comes from

Guapo meant 'bold, swaggering' in older Spanish before it settled into 'good-looking' in most of the language. Cuba kept the earlier sense, which survived through the nineteenth-century figure of the guapo de barrio, the neighbourhood strongman. A Cuban wanting to say a man is attractive says he is lindo, or that he está tremendo mango.

First attested: 19th century