Etymologically, gringo comes from griego ("Greek"), since Greek was the proverbial example of not understandable language (as in Shakespeare's "That's Greek to me[?]"). It was then applied to speakers of foreign languages, especially English language. Later it was extended to white-skinned people even if Spanish-speaking, and can sometimes even mean just blonde[?].
Most English language speakers have met the word in Western films.
Compare with Yankee and Usian.
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