narco

drug trafficker

noun NAHR-koh Rare

Origin: Shortened from narcotraficante.

Usage Note

Narco is an informal clipping of narcotraficante and is widely used across Latin America and Spain in journalism and everyday speech. It can refer to a person or, as a prefix, to things linked to drug trafficking: narcoestado, narcocultura. The word is also used as an adjective in compound nouns.

Examples

"El narco fue detenido en la frontera."

Natural Translation

The drug trafficker was arrested at the border.

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