Definition of "hombre"

[W]e're glad to learn that the Yankee bullet has not quite stopped your breath. You're all right, hombre!

c. 1850, [Thomas] Mayne Reid, “A Group of Jarochos”, in The Guerilla Chief, and Other Tales, London: C. H. Clarke, 13, Paternoster Row, page 62

That hombre now with the worn out hat, tattered shirt, and fragmentary breeches, wears a sword. Bless you, his dignity would suffer greatly without it!

1852 March 8, E. P., “Golden Correspondence.—No. 1”, in J[oseph] M. Church, editor, Church’s Bizarre. For Fireside and Wayside, volume I, number 1 (New Series), Philadelphia, Pa.: Church & Co., 140 Chestnut Street, published 17 April 1852, page 9, column 2

The foreman. As tough an hombre who ever lived. If Mr. Bell had sent Jackson instead of me, he'd take your rifle and beat you half to death with it.

2010, Jon Sharpe [pseudonym], chapter 1, in Rocky Mountain Revenge (The Trailsman; no. 342), New York, N.Y.: Signet Books, New American Library

There was a pause I didn't like, punctuated by shrieks of shrill laughter from the hombres at the bar. Only Mexicans can laugh like that.

2016, Lawrence Winkler, “Bajada”, in Orion’s Cartwheel (Cartwheels Quadrilogy; 1), Victoria, B.C.: First Choice Books, page 22