Coroto
Stuff, things, belongings — the catch-all noun for objects you cannot be bothered to name.
Related lesson: Venezuelan Spanish: A Survival Guide.
Hear it in context
Recoge tus corotos que nos vamos.
Pick up your stuff, we're leaving.
Pásame ese coroto que está encima de la nevera.
Pass me that thing on top of the fridge.
Se llevó todos sus corotos y no volvió más nunca.
She took all her things and never came back.
What It Actually Means
Corotos are things: kitchen gear, tools, belongings, the contents of a drawer, whatever is cluttering the table. It sits alongside vaina in the Venezuelan vocabulary of vagueness, with a useful division of labour — a vaina can be an object, a situation or a problem, while corotos are almost always physical and almost always plural. Lavar los corotos is to wash up; recoger los corotos is to pack.
Where It Comes From
Venezuela’s favourite etymology says that President Antonio Guzmán Blanco, an ostentatious francophile, kept paintings by Corot and had his servants warned to be careful with “los Corots” — the name supposedly spreading from the canvases to everything else in the house. It is a wonderful story and almost certainly false: the word is attested in senses tied to gourds and household vessels that predate him, and most philologists look instead to an indigenous source. Enjoy the anecdote, but do not repeat it as fact in front of a linguist.
How Natives Use It
Domestically, above all. It belongs to kitchens, moving day and mothers’ instructions, and carries no rudeness at all — a grandmother will use it without a flicker. Colombia knows the word and the Andean countries recognise it; outside that band it is opaque, which makes it one of the most reliable markers of a Venezuelan in the room.
Common Pitfall
It is informal but perfectly clean, so the mistake is not register — it is precision. Corotos is what you say when naming the object does not matter; using it when it does (to a plumber, in a shop, describing what was stolen) makes you sound evasive rather than casual. And keep it plural by default: dame el coroto works only when you are pointing at the coroto in question.