Meaning
In colloquial Spanish, cutre can describe something as shabby, poorly made, dirty, low-quality, tacky, or miserly depending on what it modifies and the surrounding context.
How it is used
The RAE records both a miserly-person sense and a broader colloquial sense for something poor, neglected, dirty, or low-quality. Instituto Cervantes material likewise lists cutre among frequent colloquial vocabulary and glosses it as dirty or bad-quality, supporting the everyday register distinction.
Examples
- “El hotel parecía bastante cutre.”
- “Fue un regalo un poco cutre para la ocasión.”
Pronunciation
/ˈkutɾe/ · KOO-treh
Tone and register
Often negative and judgmental. Applied to a place or object it can mean shabby or low-quality; applied to a person or their behavior it can sound insulting, class-coded, or morally critical.
Visitor guidance
Visitors should use cutre cautiously when describing people, neighborhoods, businesses, or lifestyles. It is easy to turn a quality judgment into a social stereotype; neutral descriptions are better when precision matters.
Cultural context
Cutre is widely useful for comprehension in Spain, but Maperla should not turn a broad colloquial adjective into 'Madrid slang'. Its inclusion answers visitor intent while preserving the national distribution and the word's potential social sting.
Places represented
Open the reviewed place guide for each regional sense carried by this canonical entry.