---
title: "echar aguas"
translation: "To keep watch. To be the lookout."
type: "word"
category: "expression"
url: "https://consalsa.app/words/echar-aguas"
canonical: "https://consalsa.app/words/echar-aguas"
published: "2026-10-06"
updated: "2026-10-06"
author: "Andrey the Nomad"
site: "ConSalsa.App"
license: "https://consalsa.app/terms#ip"
---

# echar aguas
URL: https://consalsa.app/words/echar-aguas
Translation: To keep watch. To be the lookout.
Pronunciation: /eˈtʃaɾ ˈa.ɣwas/
Category: expression
Region: Mexico
Register: casual, everyday, no edge to it
Variants: échame aguas, me echas aguas, te echo aguas, andar echando aguas
Literal meaning: To throw waters. The waters are the shouted warning, so the phrase is to keep watch on somebody's behalf.
Published: 2026-10-06

Quick answer:
- Echar aguas means to keep watch - to be the lookout while somebody else does something.
- It comes from aguas, the shouted warning that means watch out.
- Échame aguas is how you ask, and it covers everything from real sneaking to changing your shirt in a car.

What it means:
- One person does something, another watches the door. That is the whole arrangement, and it is as likely to be about eating at your desk as about anything you could get in trouble for.
- The word carries a small conspiracy without carrying any real weight. Two people are briefly in something together, and that is most of the pleasure of using it.

Literal meaning:
- Aguas is the shout - one word, meaning watch out, and it is used on its own constantly. Echar aguas turns the shout into an ongoing job: watching so that you can produce it at the right moment.
- The old practice is real. Agua va survives as a fixed Spanish locution meaning exactly what it looks like - the warning you shouted before emptying a chamber pot into the street - and it is attested in Golden Age sources, with fines for skipping it.
- What nobody has demonstrated is the last step: that Mexico's ¡aguas! descends directly from that shout rather than from the same general reflex arriving independently. So the history is solid and the family tree is the guess, which is a more useful thing to know than either half on its own.

How Mexicans use it:
- The request is the commonest form. Échame aguas, then whatever you are about to do, in that order - and the person asked does not usually need to be told what they are watching for.
- School is where most Mexicans first use it, and it never entirely loses that flavor. Even between adults there is something of a hallway and a teacher about it.
- At work it is almost always mild: somebody eating at their desk, somebody stepping out for twenty minutes, somebody finishing a personal errand on a work laptop. Échame aguas covers all of it.
- It also gets used with no wrongdoing at all - changing clothes behind a car door, carrying something awkward through a doorway, checking whether a room is empty. The watching is the point rather than the misbehavior.

Common mistake:
- Dropping the s. Echar agua is pouring water. Echar aguas is standing watch, and the plural is doing all the work - the same s that makes the shout a warning rather than a noun.
- Assuming it implies something illegal. It usually does not. The register is closer to keeping an eye out than to casing a building, and using it that way in front of Mexicans will read as melodramatic.

Examples:
- Échame aguas, ahorita vengo. — Keep an eye out for me, I'll be right back.
- Tú échame aguas y yo entro rápido. — You watch the door and I'll be quick.
- Me estuvo echando aguas toda la tarde. — He was keeping watch for me all afternoon.
- Nadie me echó aguas y me cacharon. — Nobody warned me and I got caught.

Mini dialogue:
A: Oye, ¿me echas aguas tantito?
B: ¿Para qué?
A: Voy a calentar mi comida, y si baja el jefe me avisas.
B: Jaja, va. Pero me das la mitad.
A: Trato hecho.

FAQ:
Q: What does echar aguas mean?
A: To keep watch - to be the person who warns you if somebody is coming. It comes from aguas, the shouted warning that means watch out.

Q: How do you ask someone to keep watch in Mexican Spanish?
A: Échame aguas, then say what you are about to do. The person asked rarely needs it explained further.

Q: Does echar aguas mean something illegal?
A: Usually not. It is far more often about eating at your desk or changing your shirt behind a car door than about anything you could get arrested for.

Q: Where does aguas come from?
A: The practice is real - agua va survives as a fixed Spanish locution, the warning shouted before emptying a chamber pot into the street. What is unproven is only that Mexico's ¡aguas! descends directly from that shout rather than arriving independently from the same reflex.

Q: What is the difference between echar aguas and echar agua?
A: The s. Echar agua is pouring water. Echar aguas is standing watch, and the plural is what carries the warning sense.

Q: Is aguas useful on its own?
A: Extremely. It is the one-word shout for watch out, and it is among the most useful things you can learn before arriving in Mexico.

Q: What is the difference between echar aguas and hacer el paro?
A: Hacer el paro is any favor. Echar aguas is one specific one - standing watch. Watching is a paro; most paros are not watching.

Related words: aguas, hacer-el-paro, compa, carnal, sacar-boleto