Pasapalo
A nibble, canapé or snack served with drinks — Venezuela's answer to the tapa.
Related lesson: Venezuelan Spanish: A Survival Guide.
Hear it in context
Llevé unos pasapalos para la reunión.
I took some nibbles for the get-together.
Los tequeños son el pasapalo nacional, no se discute.
Tequeños are the national appetiser, and there is no argument.
Sirvieron pasapalos antes del almuerzo y ya nadie tenía hambre.
They served nibbles before lunch and nobody was hungry any more.
What It Actually Means
A pasapalo is what you eat standing up with a drink in your other hand: tequeños, empanaditas, cheese cubes, plantain crisps, little arepas. Spain would say tapas or aperitivos, Mexico botanas, Argentina picada — Venezuela says pasapalos, and the word carries a whole social form with it, because a Venezuelan gathering is expected to have some.
Where It Comes From
Transparently compositional, and for once the folk explanation is also the likely one: el palo is a shot of rum or a stiff drink across much of the Caribbean (echarse un palo, to have one), and a pasapalo is what helps it go down — the food that pasa el palo. The drink came first and the snack was named after its job.
How Natives Use It
Plural by default, and socially rather than gastronomically: you bring pasapalos, you serve pasapalos, and hosts apologise if there are none. The word covers the entire category, hot or cold, homemade or bought, so a Venezuelan asking ¿qué llevo, pasapalos? is offering to solve the whole problem. It travelled with the diaspora more successfully than most of the shelf, largely because the tequeños travelled too.
Common Pitfall
Do not use it for a starter at a restaurant — a course served at the table is an entrada, and calling it a pasapalo suggests someone handed it to you on a napkin. Outside Venezuela the word is not understood: in Spain ask for algo para picar, in Mexico botanas. And know what you are agreeing to: “just pasapalos” at a Venezuelan house routinely turns out to be more food than dinner.