What does “tener colmillo” mean in Spanish?
Bruce vs Brandon en el careo de Guerreros Mundiales
B1 Spanish listening practice · Mexican Spanish · Picked for people who know some
Colmillo is a canine tooth — a fang. Tener colmillo (often tener mucho colmillo) means to be seasoned and shrewd: you have been around, you read situations, you cannot be tricked. There is even a gesture — tapping your eye-tooth with a finger — that says “I’m onto you.” The fuller tener el colmillo retorcido (“a twisted fang”) leans into crafty, old-fox cunning. It frames experience as something you bare like teeth.
In this competition face-off (careo), a fighter boasts “tengo el veneno y tengo el colmillo” — I’ve got the venom and the fang — bragging that nerve plus hard-won savvy will win it. Useful neighbors: tener tablas (stage experience), bajarlo de la nube (knock him off his high horse), both also in the clip.
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Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-ESP 2011 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.