Spanish Word of the Day: Tío (uncle)

Let’s look today at another important member of the family. The brother of your mother or father, your uncle, is known as tío in Spanish. It was inherited from Old Galician-Portuguese tio, originating from Late Latin thīus, from Ancient Greek θεῖος (theîos).

Tío is a masculine noun, and of course, its feminine counterpart is tía (aunt). It takes the following definite and indefinite articles:

• El tío = the uncle
• Los tíos = the uncles
• Un tío = an uncle
• Unos tíos = some uncles

Within the family you can have your blood relation tío/a carnal, which would be the immediate brother or sister of your parent. Tío/a abuelo/a would be the brother or sister of your grandparent. Tío/a político/a is used to refer to the husband or wife of your uncle or aunt. Tío/a is also sometimes used in place of padrastra/madrastra (stepfather/mother).

Tío/a can become tito/a when talking about one’s uncle or aunt with familiarity and affection.

Tío/a is also used colloquially to mean a man or a woman and in informal speech to mean a bloke/dude/pal/mate.

If you think that somebody is particularly good looking, a hunk or a stunner, you would use tío/a bueno/a. And a great guy would be un tío grande or un tío con toda la barba (literally “a guy with a whole beard”).

El tío del saco is the bogeyman, a folk character who carries naughty children away in his bag.

Useful idiomatic expressions featuring tío

Fun fact: The above idiom would have originally been ¡no hay tutía! but has almost never been used correctly.

Tutía or atutía was the name for a curative salve and therefore the original phrase would have meant ‘there’s no cure or remedy for that‘. The word came into disuse in the 17th century