fulano

fulano (feminine fulana, masculine plural fulani, feminine plural fulane)

1. (relational) Fula

• Fulano (pre-1990 spelling)

Borrowed from Spanish Fulano, from Arabic فُلَان (fulān).

• Hyphenation: fu‧la‧no

fulano m (plural fulanos)

1. what's-his-name; so-and-so

The Orthographic Agreement of 1990 prescribes the spelling of fulano, beltrano, and sicrano in lowercase, presumably due to the fact that the words do not refer to an individual. This was changed in comparison to the previous spelling standard for European Portuguese (the Orthographic Agreement of 1945), which explicitly mentioned Fulano, Beltrano, and Sicrano as being capitalized when taking the place of a given name.

• “fulano”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2025
• “fulano”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025
• “fulano”, in Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisboa: Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, 2001–2025
• “fulano”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025
• “fulano”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2025

Inherited from Old Spanish fulano, fulán, from Arabic فُلَان (fulān).

• IPA^(key): /fuˈlano/ [fuˈla.no]
• Rhymes: -ano
• Syllabification: fu‧la‧no

fulano m (plural fulanos, feminine fulana, feminine plural fulanas)

1. alternative letter-case form of Fulano, what's-his-name, so-and-so
2. (derogatory) guy, dude
3. (derogatory) friend, buster, pal, buddy (sarcastic form of address used to warn someone)

• “fulano”, 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