Llenar and Expletive
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in PL to LL, True Spanish Etymology Stories
Llenar comes from the Latin plere (“to fill”), as we’ve previously discussed. But here’s another English word that comes from the same Latin root: expletive, yes, that euphemism for vulgar words!
Expletive literally means to “fill” with the expansive ex– prefix which, taken together, means, “to fill out your words.” An expletive is literally filling a conversation with words when you don’t know what else to say!
- See more of this pattern: PL to LL, True Spanish Etymology Stories
Flojo and Flush, Fluent
The Spanish flojo means “slack, loose” — but it is a very common word in Spanish, often used to mean “relaxed” in a negative way, in senses like, “They cut themselves some slack.”
Flojo comes from the Latin fluxus, meaning the same as the Spanish. From fluxus, we get a bunch of English words, including: fluent, fluid, fluctuate and even (via fluent) affluent and influence. We also get the more fun flush and the most obvious flux (as in, “to be in flux.”) All of these can be understood in the sense that, that which is loose flows — and all of these words flow in one way or another: liquids are fluid, you speak fluently, flushing water flows, money flows if you are affluent, etc.
The -x- in the original Latin tended to disappear in English (hence leaving the vowels before and after, as in fluent or fluid) or became a -sh- sound. This is an example of the common pattern of the -sh- sounds mapping to the throat-clearing -j- in Spanish, with the fl-sh of flush mapping to the fl-j of flojo.
Mirar and Admire, Mirror, Miracle
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
The Spanish mirar, “to look at” has two curious cousins in English: admire, mirror and miracle.
All come from the same Latin root, mirari, which meant “to wonder at”. We can see how they are all related to this same sentiment of awe and wonder:
- Mirar is now just to look at someone but originally meant, to look at with wonder. Looking at someone is a form of wondering about them.
- Admire is really a form of wonderment as well. The ad- prefix means “at”, so admiration is always wonder that is directed at someone.
- Mirror too comes from the same root, and looking in the mirror is thus the most conceited act of being in awe of yourself!
- Miracle, as well as its Spanish version milagro, also comes from the same root: a Miracle is really just something that causes intense wonder!
The m-r root is present in all versions, in English and Spanish, so the pattern is easy to spot.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Lavar and Lavatory
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
We’ve already discussed how the Spanish lavar is related to other words in English like deluge.
But there’s a more obvious connection, that we’ll discuss today: lavar, meaning “to wash” is related to the English… lavatory. I guess there’s a reason why the British call it the “wash room”!
Both come from the Latin lavare, similarly meaning “to was”. And we can see the l-v root clearly in both.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Embajada and Embassy
Embassy (and Ambassador) and its Spanish equivalent, Embajada (and Embajador), both come from the same ancestor, the Old French Ambactos.
What is most interesting about these two is that it is an example of the pattern where the -j- sound in Spanish maps to the -sh- sound (and its cousins, like -ss- and -ch-) in English. Remember syrup and jarabe, chess and ajedrez, sherry and jerez, and push and empujar for a few examples.
Thus, the m-b-j of emabajada maps to the m-b-ss of embassy.
Sello and Seal
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Sello (Spanish for “stamp”) is a cousin of the English seal — not the animal, but the, umm, stamp that is put onto official documents.
Bot come from the Latin sigillum meaning, “small, engraved picture” because a stamp or seal really was just a small, engraved picture.
The -gl- sound of the original sigillum vanished into English so that the English word seal is left with just the vowels around it (e, a) (in English) while in Spanish, the -gl- evolved into the similar -ll- sound. This is in the same class of evolutions as pl- to ll- (plenty, lleno), fl- to ll- (flare, llamar), and cl- to ll- (call, llamar) as well, although less common than those.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
what is the etymological way to learn spanish?
Nerds love to pattern-match, to find commonalities among everything. Our approach to learning languages revolves (the same -volve- that is in “volver”, to “return”) around connecting the Spanish words to the related English words via their common etymologies – to find the linguistic patterns, because these patterns become easy triggers to remember what words mean. Want to know more? Email us and ask:
morgan@westegg.com
patterns to help us learn spanish:
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