Criollos (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkɾjoʎo]) are Latin Americans who are of solely or of mostly Spanish descent; such ancestry distinguishes them both from multi-racial Latin Americans and from Latin Americans of post-colonial (and not necessarily Spanish) European immigrant origin. In Spanish-speaking countries, the use of criollo to mean a person of Spanish or European ancestry is obsolete, except in reference to the colonial period. The word is used today in some countries as an adjective defining something local or very typical of a particular Latin American country.