The Spanish caer, “to fall”, sounds weird to English ears. But it is closer than it sounds to many English words.

Caer comes from the Latin cadere — meaning “to fall, sink, die” — and the middle -d- was lost as Latin grew into Spanish.

From this same Latin root cadere, we get a bunch of English words — mostly that came from the Latin to English via French — including:

• Cadaver – The most obvious connection is Cadaver, a dead body.
• Cadence – The cadence of your voice does go up and down!
• Cadenza – The cadenza is the dramatic falling off of the music at the end!
• Case (in the sense of, something that happens: a detective’s case or “in case of”; not in the “box” sense) – Case is the least obvious connection. Cadere turned into the Latin casus, meaning “an event, an accident” which then turned into the more standard, “something that happens.” So, falling/death turned into an accident which turned into something that just happens — talk about words becoming euphemistic over time!

Gestación (“to develop”) comes from the Latin gestare (“to bear, carry, gestate”) from which we also get — not that surprisingly — the English word gestate. While the original word and the English version focused on developing a baby, in Spanish it has come to be used more broadly: like a business idea develops. The g-st root is clearly visible in both words.

Postizo, Spanish for “false, artificial; in particular, a fake hairpiece” comes from the Latin positus, which meant, “put into its place.” If we’re wondering how “put into its place” came to mean “fake”, just think of the most common use of the Spanish word: for a wig. You put your fake hair into place!

From that same root, we also get the English posit — which is, quite literally, putting an idea into its place.

We can see the p-s-t root clearly in both words.

Both the common Spanish comprar (“to buy”) and the similar-sounding-but-different-meaning compare in English come from the same Latin root: comparare, meaning “to make equal with; bring together for a contest.”

How could one word evolve into two very separate meanings? Well, the original Latin comparare comes from the root com (“with”) + parare (“prepare”); what do you do with a pair of things other than prepare to make a choice between them by comparing them to find similarities and differences — these either turn into a conflict between them, or become the same… or both?

So, the English compare preserves the original sense, although with less rivalry within the pair. But the Spanish basically tells us that shopping is just an exercise in comparative shopping — comparative, literally! Just comparing existing products and choosing the best.

And it’s noteworthy that the Spanish comprar implies much more preparation than the English does. Those Spanish are careful shoppers!

So he who buys without comparing it to the other alternatives really isn’t buying (or at least, comprar-ing), in the original sense.

The Spanish for “horse” caballo, comes from the Latin for the same. From that Latin root, we get a bunch of English words including:

• Cavalry — Cavalry, after all, is just a group of knights on horses!
• Chivalry — Yes, from the same root as “horse” we get the word for the behavior of a gentleman! The “knight in shining armor” is the cross-roads between the fighter turning into a gentleman.

All of these share the same c-v-l root (which turns into c-b-l in Spanish).

The Spanish tirar, meaning “to throw, to pull”, has two unexpected cousins: the English retire and tirade.

The two English words come from the same root, also meaning the same. Thus, retire literally means, to pull back (the Latin root re- means “back”): to go on a tirade is literally just throwing out lots and lots of words!

Oddly, no one knows where this whole family of words comes from. No obviously similar cognate exists in Latin.

Moda (Spanish for “fashion”… to be fashionable is, de moda) comes from the Latin modo meaning, “just now”: what is fashionable or cool is, definitionally, temporal, for just this one fleeting moment; tomorrow, it will no longer be cool, for tomorrow isn’t now!

From the same root is the English Modernity, which, definitionally, is thus just what is happening right this very moment.

File this one under the “So obvious I didn’t realize it” category: the Spanish beber (“to drink”) is a cousin of the English, beverage.

Both come from the same fountain: the Latin bibere, meaning the same. Thus, the b-b-r in the Spanish beber maps to the m-v-r in the English beverage.

The only change is a b-to-v transition, which is one of the more common and often interchangeable transitions.