caudillo

From Spanish caudillo, from Late Latin capitellum, based on Latin caput, capitis (“head”). Doublet of caddie, cadel, cadet, capital, capitellum, and Kadet. More possible, from kaput and ili (iri, ür, uri: town), from Basque language. In Iberian ili is high point, high city.

• IPA^(key): /kɔˈdiː(j)oʊ/, /kaʊˈdiː(j)oʊ/

caudillo (plural caudillos)

1. A leader.
   • 2020 June 1, Aris Roussinos, Covid has exposed America as a failed state‎^[1]:

     While an America in decline may throw up a more competent caudillo than Trump in time, it is difficult to reasonably conclude that it possesses the societal solidarity to wage a decades-long, global struggle against a near-competitor.

2. A military dictator, especially one ruling in Spain, Portugal or Latin America.
   • 1994 October 14, Dallas Morning News:

     For, despite all the debunking and cynicism in this generation, there still are, amazingly, trusting people around who need to believe in great helmsmen, dear leaders, fuhrers, presidents-for-life, generalissimos and charismatic caudillos.

   • 2024 August 13, Marc Margolis, Opinion: Want to reform the Supreme Court? These strongmen can show a thing or two‎^[2], NPR:

     Then there’s Mexico’s outgoing populist and wannabe caudillo, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is pushing a crowd-pleasing law to require all judges be elected by popular vote, including to the Supreme Court.

• caudillismo

• caudillo on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• lodicula

Borrowed from Spanish caudillo, from Late Latin capitellum. Doublet of cadeau, cadet, and chapiteau.

• IPA^(key): /kaw.di.jo/, /ko.di.jo/

caudillo m (plural caudillos)

1. caudillo

• “caudillo”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Unadapted borrowing from Spanish caudillo.

caudillo m (plural caudillo)

1. caudillo

• cabdillo (obsolete)

Inherited from Old Spanish cabdiello, from Late Latin capitellum, based on Latin capitem.

• Syllabification: cau‧di‧llo

caudillo m (plural caudillos)

1. military leader, caudillo
   • 2019 May 16, Jorge Zepeda Patterson, “¿Y ahora qué hacemos con los caudillos?”, in El País‎^[3]:

     La revista The Economist que circula esta semana incluye una larga pieza en la que alerta sobre el fenómeno populista que recorre el continente […] América Latina, afirma, tiene una debilidad no superada por sus caudillos.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• → Catalan: cabdill (from obsolete form cabdillo)
• → English: caudillo
• → French: caudillo
• → Portuguese: caudilho
• → Russian: кауди́льо (kaudílʹo)

• “caudillo”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024
• caudillo on the Spanish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^es