Carioca

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This article is about the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro. For Fred Astaire's dance in the movie Flying Down to Rio, see Carioca (dance).

Carioca is an adjective in the Portuguese language that refers to people or things from (i.e., a demonym for) the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The word comes from the indigenous dialect of Tupi-Guarani, and means white man's home (home=oca, white man=cari).

It is said that the first Europeans' (white men) dwellings in that area were placed along a limpid brook, which soon got the name Carioca (River) as well. Later, its waters would be (wrongfully) praised as bearing healing properties, in such an exaggerated way that it caused locals to be ironically nicknamed cariocas by people in other regions^{[citation needed]}.

In contrast, the demonym for the state of Rio de Janeiro is fluminense.