La mancha sospechosa en la boda de Morris

What does “majo” mean in Spanish?

Majo (or maja for a woman) is one of the most-used compliments in Peninsular Spanish, meaning nice, likeable, or sweet-natured. In a podcast host’s retelling of a friend’s wedding, the groom gets summed up within the first breath as majísimo, majísimo — “really, really lovely” — before the story even gets to the mess on the bride’s dress. It works for people, and loosely for things too: un plan majo is a nice plan.

The word has real history behind the compliment: in late-18th-century Madrid, majos and majas were working-class men and women known for flashy dress and a proud, cheeky attitude — the culture Goya painted in La maja vestida and La maja desnuda. That defiant lower-class swagger has softened over two centuries into today’s everyday, affectionate “nice.”