What does “bolero” mean in Mexican Spanish?

In Mexico, a “bolero” is a shoeshiner — the person who polishes your shoes on the street. The surprise is that the same word also names the slow, romantic song-and-dance genre (“Bésame mucho” is a bolero), and elsewhere a short open jacket. Three unrelated meanings, one spelling. The shoeshine sense comes from “bola/bolear” — to buff to a shine — and is the everyday Mexican term where others say “lustrabotas” or “limpiabotas.”

Here “bolero” is used as a name/title in the scene’s banter, but the word’s claim to fame is the shoeshiner trade — immortalised in Cantinflas’s 1956 film “El bolero de Raquel.” The verb is “bolear los zapatos” (to shine shoes), so a “boleador/bolero” is the one who does it. Outside Mexico, default to “lustrar/lustrabotas” (much of South America) or “limpiabotas” (Spain).