Check the pedigree of the free dictionary. I will bet that it is not rigorously scholarly; it's like widipedia in that way.


Part of the reason I quoted Merriam-Webster is that the free dictionary was ignorant in not knowing "hispanic" also applies to the Portuguese. Merriam related the term to the entire Iberian peninsula, not just people of the nation of Spain.

The fact that Basques, who come roughly from the Iberian peninsula, are not referred to as hispanic is that their language is of a completely different origin than both Spanish and Portuguese.

Now that I've slammed wikipedia: If you look up the term there, you find that hispanic is generally not used for Portuguese, and in fact refers to Latinos is the Western Hemisphere!

Basically, then, the information on the terms is confusing and there's probably no reason for arguing about what it "means" in some academic vacuum.