name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A cowboy; a herdsman. Southwestern, US

   "A day or two before a number of vaqueroes set out for the Santa Cruz Mountains and lassoed a very big grizzly."

2. 2
   local names for a cowboy (‘vaquero’ is used especially in southwestern and central Texas and ‘buckaroo’ is used especially in California) wordnet

Proper Noun

1. 1
   A surname from Spanish.

Synonyms

All synonyms

broncobusterbuckaroobuckaroobuckeroocaballerocattleman

Example

More examples

"Vaquero is a Spanish word for cowboys who work with "vacas" or cows."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Spanish vaquero (“cowherd”), from vaca (“cow”). Doublet of buckaroo.

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Spanish Vaquero, from vaquero (“herdsman”).

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