Débil, Spanish for “weak,” comes from the same root as the English word debilitating: the Latin debilitas, meaning the same. This is another “obvious once you know” etymology.

Curiously, debilitas itself comes from the prefix de- (“away from”) and the Proto-Indo-European root *bel-, meaning “strong.” From the same root we get, via other routes, the strong men of the Bolsheviks. Yes, it’s the same b-l root there too!

Dorado, Spanish for “covered in gold” — think of McDonalds in Spanish. Los Arcos Dorados (the golden arches–literally!) comes from the Latin de– (“of”) and aurum, “gold”: gilded or gold-covered, literally means… from gold.

From the same Latin root we also get the English aurora, “dawn” or the Roman goddess of the dawn. The morning sun glittering in the distance is… shining, just like gold does.

We can see the a-r root in both words clearly!

The Spanish for “anger,” rabia, is curiously related to the disease of insane dogs: rabies.

Both come from the Latin rabere, meaning “to be crazy.” So, rabies is literally when a dog is acting crazy — and, at least in Spanish, when you get angry, it is a form of insanity!

Also from the Latin rabere comes related English words such as: rage, enrage, and rabid.

Vencer — “to defeat” in Spanish — comes from the Latin vincere, of course from the classic triple-V line of Caesar’s. But from this root, we get a bunch of interesting words, including:

• Vincent — yes, the name is literally, The Conquerer!
• Victory — the victor does win over the enemy!
• Convince — With the con- prefix… the victor of an argument just convinces the other!
• Vanquish — The victor vanquishes the opponent!
• Invincible — the victor is someone who is not (in!) vincible!
• Evict — when you’re evicted from your apartment, that is a form of defeat

We can see the v-n-c root in most of these, or slight variations, like v-n-q.

The Spanish rubio (meaning “blonde,” as in the hair color) comes from the Latin rubeus, meaning “red”.

How did “red” come to mean “blonde”? In a world where everyone has very dark black hair… it’s easy to see how everyone could conflate blonde hair and red hair. The Romans didn’t know the Irish!

From the same Latin root, we get various English words including Ruby, the stone, and guess what color it is? We also get Rubric, which was originally religious directions that were written in… guess what color ink?