A word with a particular history is chaval. This word derives from the Romani, gypsy voice chavale (plural of chavó) which means boy.
According to the Spanish language, words such as chaval, chavala and chavalería refer to young people or children.
There are countries in Latin America where it is common to find shorter forms such as chavo and chava. They are words that seem to have the same origin
Chavo in the sense of currency comes from ochavo, which in the old days was equivalent to one eighth of an ounce.
