Bastard — or, between friends, "dude". Also "brutally hard".
Three jobs at once. An insult to a stranger. A greeting between close male friends — ¿qué onda, cabrón? And an adjective for difficulty: el examen estuvo cabrón, the exam was brutal. Tone and relationship decide which you are getting.
Literally a big male goat. The insult sense is old and pan-Hispanic; Mexico added the affectionate one.
Genuinely insulting to someone you do not know well. Learners often copy the friendly use and aim it at the wrong person.
Reading a definition isn't the same as saying it to someone. Lingo Kaiava is a voice tutor set to Mexican Spanish — it uses cabrón the way locals do, corrects you in the moment, and never "fixes" the way real people actually talk into textbook Mexican Spanish.
Practice Mexican Spanish free →
Free to start. No signup for your first conversation.