Naco is a pejorative word often used in Mexican Spanish

Mexican Spanish

Mexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, as spoken in Mexico and in various places of Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin....

 to describe the bad-mannered and poorly educated people of lower social classes. It is equivalent to 'white trash' in American English and culture. While in Nahuatl language the word "naka" means "flesh" or "people", the Aztecs preferred the word "tlaca" to refer to people and "naka" is almost confined to refer to meat. It is erroneous to believe that "Naco" and "naka" are related.
"Naco" is an apocope derived from the nahuatl word "nacayote", "najayote" or "nejayote", waste water derived from corn processing (nixtamal) which was sarcastically compared by Aztecs to drool. Therefore, a "nacayote" was originally a slobbering (i.e., stupid) person. During the 20th century the word became shortened to "naco" and shifted its meaning from stupidity to ignorance. A naco is usually associated with lower socio-economic classes and/or the indigenous

Indigenous peoples

Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....

, but it also includes the nouveau-riche.

Definition and usage

The term naco is generally used to describe people, behaviors or aesthetic choices seen as unrefined or unsophisticated, often in a comic way. As a person, the "naco" may display a general lack of refinement by adopting the worst aspects of African American Hip-Hop culture or Country Music, adopting a "gangster mentality", unrefined verbal expressions or slang, peculiar accents, lack of social manners, or comically bad taste. The term is often associated to lower social classes, but it is also used as an elitist expression from the educated to describe the uneducated, and among the middle and upper classes as a synonym of bad taste. In many situations, the word may have no derogatory intention and may even demonstrate familiarity.

The Mexican definition of a naco may be analogous to the American modern-day definition of redneck

Redneck

Redneck is a historically derogatory slang term used in reference to poor, uneducated white farmers, especially from the southern United States...

, the British chav

Chav

A chav is a term that is used in the United Kingdom to describe a stereotype of teenagers and young adults from an underclass background.-Etymology:...

 or the French beauf

Beauf

Beauf [pronounced /bof/] is a French term describing a person thought to be a combination of vulgar, unsophisticated, unintelligent, arrogant, uncaring, and chauvinistic, without any taste for etiquette or good manners...

. However, the usage and derogatory tones vary.

Sociolinguistic use

In the last decades, the middle and upper classes in Mexico have experienced a rapid expansion due to, among other things, economic development and urbanization. The new middle class and "nouveau riche" have entered the competition on status symbols such as cars, houses, and jewelry, which have given rise to the term "naco" as a form of cultural or economic elitism. Mexicans of higher status often see extravagant displays of wealth as making a person more naco, in that they make spectacles of themselves by overcompensating for lower social status.

See also

• Bogan
  Bogan
  The term bogan is Australian slang, usually pejorative or self-deprecating, for an individual who is recognised to be from a lower class background or someone whose limited education, speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour exemplifies such a background....
  
  
• Chav
  Chav
  A chav is a term that is used in the United Kingdom to describe a stereotype of teenagers and young adults from an underclass background.-Etymology:...
  
  
• Cholo
  Cholo
  Cholo is an ethnic slur created by Hispanic criollos in the 16th century, and it has been applied to individuals of mixed or pure American Indian ancestry, or other racially mixed origin. The precise usage of "cholo" has varied widely in different times and places...
  
  
• Dres
  Dres
  Dres or dresiarz is a term used in Poland to describe a specific subculture or class of young males. Dresiarze stereotypically live in urban tower blocks or tenement houses. They are usually portrayed as undereducated, unemployed, aggressive and anti-social. The dresiarz phenomenon was first...
  
  
• Fresa
  Fresa
  Fresa is a slang term often used in Mexico for a cultural stereotype of superficiality to youngsters of whom many come from a high class and educated family....
  
  
• Lumpenproletariat
  Lumpenproletariat
  Lumpenproletariat, a collective term from Lumpenproletarier , was first defined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The German Ideology and later elaborated on in other works by Marx...
  
  
• Mexican Spanish
  Mexican Spanish
  Mexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, as spoken in Mexico and in various places of Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin....
  
  
• NaCo
  Naco
  Naco may refer to:* Naco , a pejorative slang term in Mexican Spanish* NaCo., a Mexican clothing company, the name of which is based on the previous slang term* Naco, Arizona, USA, a small town in southeastern Arizona...
  
  
• Redneck
• White trash
  White trash
  White trash is an American English pejorative term referring to poor white people in the United States, suggesting lower social class and degraded living standards...
  
  
• Anti-intellectualism
  Anti-intellectualism
  Anti-intellectualism is hostility towards and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectual pursuits, usually expressed as the derision of education, philosophy, literature, art, and science, as impractical and contemptible...