# vato
## English
### Etymology

From Spanish vato, ultimately from chivato. Term is mostly used by people from northwest Mexico (Sinaloa, Sonora, Chihuahua, Baja California).

### Noun

vato (plural vatos)
* (Chicano, slang) A Hispanic youth; a guy; a dude.
** 1976, Christopher Press (publisher), Caracol, Volumes 3-4:Say sergeant, my primo from Osten is over there. A real crazy vato, man.
** 1998 February 22, Guy Trebay, “Uprising the Indie”, in The New York Times Magazine‎:Its 20-page portfolio of stills from the music-video director Mark Romanek functions as a virtual swipe book of contemporary style idioms: cowboys, aliens, vatos, Janet Jackson and Madonna.
** 1999, Mick Farren, Jim Morrison's Adventures in the Afterlife, A Novel:Two of the pursuers broke cover, a zoot-suited vato armed with a sacred Thompson gun and a thugee in dirty robes with a nineteenth century Martini carbine.

## Esperanto
### Pronunciation

* IPA: [ˈvato]
* Rhymes: -ato
* Hyphenation: va‧to

### Etymology 1

Borrowed from French ouate and German Watte. Compare Polish wata (“cotton wool”), Russian вата (vata, “cotton wool, glass wool, drugstore cotton”), Italian ovatta (“cotton wool, wadding”), English wad (“amorphous mass”).

#### Noun

vato (accusative singular vaton, plural vatoj, accusative plural vatojn)
* cotton wool

### Etymology 2

Borrowed from English watt, named after Scottish engineer James Watt. Compare Italian, Portuguese, and French watt, German Watt, Yiddish וואַט (vat), Polish wat, Russian ватт (vatt).

#### Noun

vato (accusative singular vaton, plural vatoj, accusative plural vatojn)
* watt
    Synonyms: ŭato, vatto

##### Derived terms

* jotavato
* kilovato

## Malagasy
### Etymology

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *batu, from Proto-Austronesian *batu (compare Cebuano bato, Fijian vatu, Hawaiian haku, Hiligaynon bato, Ilocano bato, Indonesian batu, Kapampangan batu, Malay batu, Maori whatu, Sundanese batu, Tagalog bato).

### Noun

vato
* rock, stone, cobble

## Pali
### Alternative forms

* 𑀯𑀢𑁄 (Brahmi script)
* वतो (Devanagari script)
* ৰতো (Bengali script)
* වතො (Sinhalese script)
* ဝတော or ဝတေႃ (Burmese script)
* วโต or วะโต (Thai script)
* ᩅᨲᩮᩣ (Tai Tham script)
* ວໂຕ or ວະໂຕ (Lao script)
* វតោ (Khmer script)
* 𑅇𑄖𑄮 (Chakma script)

### Noun

vato
* nominative singular of vata (“religious duty”)

## Spanish
### Alternative forms

* bato, jato

### Etymology

According to the Chicano poet Luis Alberto Urrea, the word originated in Pachuco slang of the 1940s, and is derived from "the once-common friendly insult chivato or goat."

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbato/ [ˈba.t̪o]
* Rhymes: -ato
* Syllabification: va‧to

### Noun

vato m (plural vatos, feminine vata, feminine plural vatas)
* (Chicano, slang) Male Hispanic youth; guy; dude; boyfriend; significant other

#### Usage notes

* This term may be used with intimate friends or as a derogatory reference. In some contexts, the term has gang connotations. The feminine form, vata, is also used by Chicano prostitutes to refer to a woman who owes them money.

#### Derived terms

* vato loco (“gangster, gangbanger”, literally “crazy dude”)

### References

* ↑ Urrea, Luis Alberto with José Galvez, photographer (2000) Vatos, El Paso: Cinco Puntos Press, →ISBN

### Further reading

* “vato”, in Diccionario de americanismos [Dictionary of Americanisms] (in Spanish), Association of Academies of the Spanish Language [Spanish: Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española], 2010

## Yami
### Etymology

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *batu, from Proto-Austronesian *batu.

### Noun

vato
* stone