L

laburar [vi] [Italian lavorare] to work, to have a job.

laburo [m] [Italian lavoro] job, work.

lastrar [v] [becoming rare] to eat (lit. ‘to load ballast’); lastre [m] food (lit. ‘ballast’).

leche [f] lit. milk; [taboo] 1 semen (and fig. male horniness caused by abstinence); see tragaleche; 2 [colloquial] attitude or predisposition, and also luck, fortune. When used alone, this usually has a negative connotation, but it is usually accompanied by the qualifiers ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (buena leche, mala leche). Serves adjectively too. For example: Qué mala leche es este profesor ‘What a bad attitude this professor has’.

llevarse puesto [ps-ref vt] (lit. ‘to wear [sthg] home’) to crash into sthg/sbdy and drag it along; to walk or run inadvertently into sthg/sbdy. Un auto recién se llevó puesta una bici en la otra esquina ‘A car just crashed into a bike on the corner over there’; Venía tan distraído que me llevé puesta la pared ‘I was so distracted I walked into a wall’.

loco/a [m, f] lit. ‘crazy person’; 1 friendly addressing term (cf. English ‘dude’): Loco, ¿me decís la hora? ‘Dude, can you tell what time it is?’; alternate form locura [m/f]; 2 guy, girl, person: Conocí a un loco que me voló los pelos ‘I met this guy who blew my mind’; 3 loco divino [m], loca divina [f] (appreciative) a person who is funny and acts like crazy, a person with uncommonly original thoughts; see divino.

lola 1 [f, usually pl] [1990ish, becoming rare] a woman’s breast; hacerse las lolas to get a breast implant. Syn. goma. Possibly related to Lolita. 2 [interj] short for lo lamento “I’m sorry” (rather meaning “Tough!”).

lompa [m] [rare] (singular in Spanish) trousers. Syllable inversion and shortening of pantalón, of the same meaning.

luca [f] an amount of one thousand items (esp. one thousand pesos, or whatever currency unit is in vigour); una luca verde ‘one thousand dollars’ (lit. ‘a green luca‘). See also gamba, palo.

lunfardo [m] strictly speaking, early 20th century slang, as used in various degrees in most tango lyrics, supposedly to reflect low-class street jargon of the time; more commonly used to refer to slang and colloquial expressions in general, except modern ones. Some lunfardo words are still in use; some are old-fashioned, others have entered the mainstream. There are tango lyrics, however, where the lunfardo is so obscure you need a dictionary to understand the subject.

lungo/a [m, f, adj] tall (person); usually affectionate. From Italian lungo ‘long’.