Paisa
noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A subdivision of currency, equal to one hundredth of a Indian, Nepalese, or Pakistani rupee.
- 2 A person hailing from the same country; in particular, a fellow Latino. slang
"... prison, talked about his relationship with drug traffickers in Mexico some twenty-five years before. His street gang had a relationship with a paisa wholesaler. An understanding of respect existed between Rubén's gang and its paisa supplier[…] Wrangler, a White man who associated with the Aryan Brotherhood while in priso, described how the changing demographics of his neighborhood led to his being introduced to paisas who were moving meth in from Mexico. […] Wrangler went on to describe a specific contact from his neighborhood, Carlos, who […] had gone on to become part of a Latino stret gang and later a prison gang and had a connection with a wholesaler."
- 3 a fractional monetary unit in Bangladesh and India and Nepal and Pakistan wordnet
- 4 A subdivision of currency, equal to one hundredth of a Bangladeshi taka.
- 5 A Latino who is not a gangster nor gang-affiliated. slang
"[The story] came to me in various versions from marero and paisa inmates who had been incarcerated in the early 2000s. “El Spyder. I knew him. He was sureño,” said Carlos, an[…]"
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- 6 A subdivision of currency, equal to one thousandth of an Omani rial.
- 7 A subdivision of various former currencies of India. historical
Example
More examples"... prison, talked about his relationship with drug traffickers in Mexico some twenty-five years before. His street gang had a relationship with a paisa wholesaler. An understanding of respect existed between Rubén's gang and its paisa supplier[…] Wrangler, a White man who associated with the Aryan Brotherhood while in priso, described how the changing demographics of his neighborhood led to his being introduced to paisas who were moving meth in from Mexico. […] Wrangler went on to describe a specific contact from his neighborhood, Carlos, who […] had gone on to become part of a Latino stret gang and later a prison gang and had a connection with a wholesaler."
Etymology
From Hindi पैसा (paisā) / Urdu پَیسَہ (paisa), from Sauraseni Prakrit *𑀧𑀬𑀁𑀲 (*payaṃsa), presumably from unattested Sanskrit *पदांश (*padāṃśa), from पद (pada, “quarter”) + अंश (aṃśa, “part, piece”) in reference its historical value of ¹⁄₄ anna.
From Spanish paisa, a shortening of paisano.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.