What is "guey"

Güey (; also spelled guey, wey or we) is a word in colloquial Mexican Spanish which is commonly used to refer to any person without using his name. Though more often applied to males, it can be used equally for males and females. It is used roughly the same way " dude" is used in modern American English. It is derived from the term buey, which refers to an ox, used for meat, sacrifice, or labor. Over time, the initial underwent a consonant mutation to a , resulting in the modern güey. The word can be used as an insult, like "fool", although, due to its extremely high frequency of use in a multitude of contexts, it has lost much of its offensive character, becoming a colloquialism.