What is una persona "de categoría"?

What is una persona “de categoría” in Spanish?

WordReference (my favorite Spanish-English dictionary) lists the entry of “de categoría” as:

de categoría - first-class, first-rate, top notch.

Whereas the RAE (Real Academia Española) has the following definition of “de categoría”:

de categoría

1. loc. adj. De importancia, valor o elevada condición. Un negocio de categoría. Una persona de categoría.

So una persona de categoría would be something a long the lines of a first-class/top notch guy/gal.

Learning Spanish from TV Shows

So recently, I’ve been watching the Argentinian TV series called El Encargado – also known as The Boss in English – and let me tell you, I’ve been enjoying it a lot. I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it yet. This is the first Argentinian show I’m watching so there’s a HUGE number of unfamiliar vocabulary and phrases I’m hearing as I, on the other hand, have been studying Spanish from Spain.

Despite the various nuances of words the use in Argentina such as the word pileta instead of piscina or the conjugations of vos instead of tú, today’s learning is actually a more universal phrase and that is una persona de categoría, in other words, a top notch guy/gal.

Usages of “de categoría”

Apart from applying to people, it seems that the phrase “de categoría” can apply also to other entities and objects such as businesses (Es un negocio de categoría) and food (Nos preparó una comida de categoría).

Other variations of “de categoría”

What do “de gran categoría” and “de primera categoría” mean in Spanish?

There also seems to be other variations and permutations of the expression.

For example, de gran categoría and de primera categoría are other ways to say the same thing.

Pedro compró un auto de gran categoría.

Ana sale con un científico de gran categoría.

Note that these expressions, when referring to people, usually refer to their character and personality.

What does “de segunda categoría” mean in Spanish?

In the same line of thinking, you can use the phrase de segunda categoría to refer to something that is second-rate or low-quality.

Some examples:

Quiero un evento bueno, no de segunda categoría.

I want a good event, not a second-class one. (The current event is pretty bad)

No te preocupes por eso, es de segunda categoría.

Don’t worry about it, it’s secondary. (It’s not important/secondary, so don’t worry)

A Final Word about Journaling my Spanish Learnings

Before signing off for today, a quick note on my plans for journalling my Spanish language learning journey. If you’ve stumbled upon this page somehow, then you are witnessing the first post in my Spanish Journal. This will be a specific section of the blog dedicated for unstructured posts about my personal reflections and learnings I’ve had with Spanish. In this journal, you will find all sorts of thoughts, learnings, doubts, etc. that I have about the Spanish language.

Feel free to check out future posts by looking for the category: Journal (Spanish). As you’ve seen above, today’s learning of the day is about the phrase “de categoría”.