NEATO ADJECTIVE (YOUTH CULTURE)

In young people's slang, especially in the US: really good, desirable, or successful; extremely 'neat'. Etymology: Formed by adding the suffix -o (here intensifying the force of the adjective) to neat in its colloquial sense 'excellent, desirable'. History and Usage: Neato was in spoken use in the late sixties, but became a particularly fashionable term of approval among young people in the late seventies and early eighties. It was at this time that it also spread outside the US to other English-speaking countries. We would probably never have heard of Peter Wagschal, or of his neato Ouija Board Studies Program, if it hadn't been for one Larry Zenke, a pretty neato guy himself. Underground Grammarian Jan. 1982, p. 1 Those were the days when Beaver used to...have what she calls 'a neato free time'. More (New Zealand) Feb. 1986, p. 49