The Spanish cobrar (“to charge”; in the sense of, to charge a fee or collect a payment) comes from the older Spanish recobrar (meaning, “to recuperate”) — which itself comes from the Latin recuperare for the same “to recuperate.”
We can see the c‑b-r mapping to the c‑p-r clearly, since the ‑c- and ‑p- are often interchanged.
Lesson: charging for something is really just recuperating money that is owed to you anyway!
