Jeva
Girlfriend — or, more loosely and more riskily, a woman.
Related lesson: Venezuelan Spanish: A Survival Guide.
Hear it in context
Vino con su jeva a la parrilla del sábado.
He brought his girlfriend to Saturday's barbecue.
¿Y tú tienes jevo o qué?
So have you got a boyfriend or what?
Esa jeva fue la que nos ayudó con las maletas.
That woman was the one who helped us with the cases.
What It Actually Means
A jeva is a girlfriend — the person you are actually going out with — and by extension, in looser street use, simply a young woman. The masculine jevo does the same job for boyfriends, which is worth knowing because it makes the word less asymmetric than the equivalent slang in several neighbouring countries. Venezuela’s other options for the same relationship run from novia (neutral, and what you say to her parents) through catira or chama to the very informal mi vieja.
Where It Comes From
Undocumented, though the most repeated proposal derives it from Eva — the first woman, generalised to any woman. That is a guess of long standing rather than an established etymology. The word is Caribbean rather than specifically Venezuelan: Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Panama all use it, with local shadings.
How Natives Use It
Informally, in speech, among people of roughly the same age. With a possessive — mi jeva, su jeva — it is affectionate and entirely ordinary between friends. Without one, describing a stranger, it slides towards the appraising register that made the word contentious in the first place. Venezuelan song lyrics and comedy lean on it heavily, which is part of why it spread across the diaspora intact.
Common Pitfall
Two warnings. First, it is not a compliment to her face: ¿cómo estás, jeva? addressed to a woman you do not know well is at best crude. Second, the appraising sense is close enough to the surface that many Venezuelan women dislike hearing it applied to them by strangers — so use it about your own partner or a friend’s, and reach for muchacha, chama or her name for everyone else. In writing, and anywhere near work, novia is the word.