VESRES in Porteño Spanish

I bet the word ‘VESRE’ got you thinking, right? Have you any clue about its meaning? Kudos if you already know what they are! Anyway, whatever the case you are just a paragraph away from finding out or learning more about them.

So, a VESRE is a word spelled with its syllables reversed. It comes from the word ‘revés’, referring to the fact that the syllables are turned around. For some reason, they seem to inhabit Porteño Spanish comfortably. However, there is a pretty similar phenomenon in French, known as “verlan”.

VESRES are one curious feature of Argentinian Lunfardo, but beware: for a language learner, particularly for one who lives in Buenos Aires or is planning to, I’d say it’s more important to be a passive user. Actively using them might be awkward.

I get the impression that my parents’ generation was more keen on VESRES than mine. There are still a handful of them in every day casual conversation, but sometimes they just gush out of older people’s mouths.

Two syllable VESRES

The most common species are two syllable words. The list below is updated to 2022 standards.

• OFRI – frío | “Uy, ¡qué ofri hace!”
• LORCA – calor | “Qué lorca, por Dios!”
• FECA – café | “Hoy ya me tomé 3 fecas.”
• BEPI – pibe | “Con 24 ya tiene tres bepis.”
• DIOME – medio | “El aumento del alquiler me partió al diome.”
• SOPI – piso | “Se me cayó la porción de pizza al sopi.”
• ZAPI – pizza | “¿Pedimos una zapi?”
• ÑAPI – piña (golpe, puñetazo) | “No me jodas que te vas a comer una ñapi.”
• SOPRE – preso | “Leo está sopre desde 2020.”
• ÑOBA – baño | “Tengo que ir al ñoba ya.”
• LLECA – calle | “Me encontré $100 en la lleca.”
• JOVIE – viejo | “Luis está un poco jovie para eso.”
• MIONCA – camión | “Estoy demorado porque hay un tremendo mionca estacionado en la puerta de mi casa y no puedo sacar el auto.”
• SOPE – peso | “No tengo un sope.”
• TOMUER – muerto | “Qué tomuer!”

Note that:

• some VESRES affect the original stress of the word (café | feca).
• when any of these words is used in the plural form, the “s” is attached to the last syllable.

Special cases of VESREs

There are some interesting cases which are not exactly inversions. Let’s take a look.

• ATRODEN – adentro
• ARAFUE – afuera

And lastly, there are some words which are formed by placing the last syllable at the front.

• DOBOLU – boludo
• DOLAPE – pelado
• CHOBORRA – borracho
• SOPERMI – permiso
• ZOCHORI – chorizo

The list goes on, and it includes many terms of coarser language that I didn’t want to include here.

Anyway, make sure you check the lessons section to practice or learn Argentinian Spanish with me.

Thanks for reading,

and happy Spanish learning,

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