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.
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
Here at ForNerds, we love meeting and talking to other people who love learning Spanish, etymologies, and any other topic in nerdy ways. Drop us a note and say hi!
morgan@westegg.com
