What does "ladino" mean?

Alternative letter-case form of Ladino (“mestizo”).

What is a synonym for "ladino"?

Common synonyms include: judeo spanish, cape colored, cattalo, citrange, cross, crossbreed.

//ləˈdinoʊ// name, noun

name, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Noun

1
Alternative letter-case form of Ladino (“mestizo”). alt-of, countable, uncountable
"In the production of the ladino the white element has almost always been represented by the father […]"
2
Trifolium repens (white clover). countable, uncountable
3
A person in Latin America whose culture or ancestry is a mixture of European Spanish and Native American, especially one who speaks Spanish; a mestizo.
"[A]lthough almost all Pedranos consider themselves fully Mayan, many have some European and Ladino ancestry, stemming especially from prior generations when Spanish authorities governed the town."
4
the Spanish dialect spoken by Sephardic Jews but written in the Hebrew script wordnet
5
A cunningly vicious, wild or unmanageable horse. Southeastern, US, countable

Proper Noun

1
A Romance language mainly spoken by Sephardic Jews (Wikipedia), derived mainly from Old Castilian (Spanish) and Hebrew.
2
A surname from Spanish.

"Courses in Ladino from the 8th of November."

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Spanish ladino (“Latinized; crafty”).

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Italian ladino (“Ladin”), because the clover grows in Ladin-speaking areas.

Etymology 3

From Ladino לאדינו (ladino) (or from Spanish ladino), from Latin Latīnus (“Latin”). Doublet of Ladin and Latin.

Etymology 4

From Spanish ladino (“Latinized”).

Etymology 5

Borrowed from Spanish Ladino. This surname is mostly found in Colombia.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.