"¡Guácala!" question.

Question

I was meeting with my Spanish conversation group today, and someone asked me what my favorite word in Spanish is. I said my favorite is "¡guacala!". No one in the group knew the word. I learned the word in Austin, TX. I was told it meant something akin to "eeew!" or "yuck!". I just tried to look it up on Spanishdict but couldn't find it. Maybe I'm spelling it wrong. Has anyone else heard of the word? ¡Gracias por la ayuda!

Great question :-) - DJ_Huero, Apr 30, 2012

I edited to add the tilde. - gringojrf, Apr 30, 2012

Thanks! - Helind, Apr 30, 2012

Answer 1

I have heard it as well and the context was similar to yuck. Here is a result from a google search.

¡guácala!

Gracias, gringojrf. - Helind, Apr 30, 2012

Answer 2

Yes. You're right. I'm from Guatemala and we use it all the time. It means "Yuck!" or "Ewww!" and its correct spelling is ¡Guácala! (with a tilde, because it's an "esdrújula", which means that the stress ("el acento") falls on the third syllable from right to left and all "esdrújulas" must have a tilde. Oh, by the way, here in my country, we also use the expression "¡Shish!" [shiysh] instead of "guácala"... It's not Spanish, but it's a fun word to say.

Gracias, caluzac. And, thanks for the info about the tilde, very interesting. - Helind, Apr 30, 2012

Answer 3

Guácala = eww

Its used if you dont like something.

Thanks! - Helind, Apr 30, 2012

Answer 4

"¡Guácala!" is definently a word, very common in México showing disguist toward something. It's used in many countries though, and I found this link and as well this discussion useful in explanation.

Thanks for the link! - Helind, Apr 30, 2012