Grammatical gender, nothing more. Amigo is a male friend, amiga a female one. Spanish nouns referring to people agree with the person's gender, and the -o and -a endings are the most common pattern for that agreement.
The core difference
- amigo — a male friend.
- amiga — a female friend.
The plurals, and the rule that surprises people
- amigos — a group of male friends, or a mixed group of any composition.
- amigas — a group of female friends only.
A group of ninety-nine women and one man is amigos in traditional grammar. This default has been widely criticised, and some speakers now write amigues or amigxs as inclusive alternatives — neither is accepted by the Real Academia Española, and both remain contested.
Agreement runs through the sentence
The ending is not decorative. Articles and adjectives must match: un buen amigo but una buena amiga. Getting the noun right and the adjective wrong is one of the most common errors for English speakers, because English marks none of this.
The false friend
Amigo in English carries a distinctly informal, sometimes mock-Western tone — used as a jokey address between English speakers, often with a hint of caricature. That connotation does not exist in Spanish, where it is simply the ordinary word for friend. Using it as English slang towards a Spanish speaker can land badly for exactly that reason.
The related vocabulary
- Amistad — friendship.
- Amable — kind, friendly. A false friend for English amiable, which it resembles closely but is not identical to.
- Amar — to love, the root of the whole family.
Where the word comes from
From Latin amicus, friend, from amare, to love. English inherited the same root by a different path — through French — giving amicable, amity and amateur, which literally means one who does something for love rather than payment.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between amigo and amiga?
Grammatical gender. Amigo is a male friend, amiga a female one. Spanish nouns for people agree with the person's gender.
What do you call a mixed group of friends?
Amigos. In traditional Spanish grammar the masculine plural covers any mixed group, even one that is mostly women.
Where does amigo come from?
From Latin amicus, friend, from amare, to love. English took the same root through French, giving amicable, amity and amateur.