An informal Spanish word for work that carries the rhythm of everyday labor without the formality of professional language.
Currar is how Spaniards talk about work when they're not being formal about it. You'd say it to a friend asking what you're up to — "tengo que currar mañana" (I have to work tomorrow) — or when leaving for the day: "me voy al curro" (I'm heading to work). It carries the weight of everyday labor without the stiffness of official language.
The word traveled from Spain's Romani community into mainstream Spanish sometime in the early 20th century, staying underground in working-class circles until the 1950s. Then something shifted. Between 1954 and 1961, its appearance in Spanish literature exploded — a 15-fold jump that suggests the word caught the moment when industrial Spain was rapidly urbanizing, when workers from different backgrounds were suddenly shoulder to shoulder in factories and cities.
What makes currar interesting is what it says about language and class. Spain's dictionary marked it "vulgar" in 1983, then upgraded it to merely "colloquial" by 1992 — nine years for a word to go from rough-edged to普通 accepted. That's the timeline of a country deciding that working-class speech belongs in the national vocabulary. Meanwhile, currar stayed distinctly Spanish. Latin America developed its own words for work — laburar in Argentina, chambear in Mexico — but currar remained anchored to Spain, a linguistic marker of place as much as class.