Sacar (Spanish for “to take out”) comes from the old German sakan meaning “to fight”, That does, oddly, make sense: in a fight, you do take someone out — we still use that other sense today, in English, in that very phrase!

From the same old German root, we get the English…. to sock. No, not the word for the slip over your toes but in the old-fashioned verb sense my grandpa uses: to punch someone. So, we see that it still retains some of the fighting sense!

Ceniza (Spanish for “ashes”) comes from the Latin cinis, meaning the same.

From the Latin root cinis, we get the English… cinder as well as incinerate. That makes sense: these are either the cause or the result of the process that causes ashes!

The most interesting part is…. this also explains why the Cinderella fairy tale, in Spanish, is called… Cenicienta!

We can see the c-n root clearly in all these variations.

Coima (Spanish for “a bribe” and an unfortunately common word) comes from the Latin calvor, which means, “to cheat, deceive, trick”.

From that root, we get the English… calumny, which means “slander” (in case you forgot your SAT words or didn’t go to Law School!).

It is easy to see how a word meaning “cheating” transformed into both bribery on one hand, and slander on the other.

The c-m of coima maps to the c-(l)-mn of calumny, with the “l” having been transitioned out over time.

Planchar (Spanish for “to iron”) comes from the French for the same, planche, which comes from the Latin plancus, for “straight.” Ironing is making something straight!

From that same root, we get the English… plank. A plank, after all, is just a piece of wood that is… straight.

The mapping of the Spanish p-l-n-ch to the English p-l-n-k is quite clear.

Carne (Spanish for “meat”) comes from the Latin carnis (“flesh”) — not surprising at all.

But there’s a mystical connection as well: from this Latin root, we also get the English… reincarnation. Combined with the re– prefix for “again”, reincarnation literally means “in the flesh… again”. Sounds just like what reincarnation is!

Note: see also our previous posts about Carne and carnival as well.

Suggested by: Hong Linh

Cárcel (Spanish for “prison, jail”) comes from the Latin for the same, carcer. Note that the words are almost identical except for the l/r swap — a very common switch linguistically (think of the Japanese, who pronounce both interchangeably, “Frushing meadows! Frushing meadows!” as they joke in New York).

From that same Latin root carcer, we get two English words.

More directly, Incarceration. That makes sense — incarcerating is going to jail! We can see the c-r-c root in both.

More subtly, we also get the English cancel. The English made the same l/r shift as the Spanish — but, as it came via French, the first -r- became an -n-. But that’s a French pattern for another day!

The English abhor is a SAT word meaning “to hate”, as we all know.

But who would’ve thunk that it’s related to the common Spanish word aburrir, meaning “boring”?

Aburrir comes directly from the Latin abhorrere meaning exactly what it seems to.

And Ahhorrere itself brings us other English words, like horror.

So — to be boring is actually horrible, by definition!