You wouldn’t think that suerte (Spanish for “luck”) would be related to the English sort. They sound similar — both with an s-r mapping to each other — but the definitions are completely different. How could they be related?

Both come from the Latin sortem meaning, “fate, lot” (“lot” in the sense of “your lot in life”).

The evolution of sortem into the Spanish suerte is straightforward: “luck” is just a less metaphysical version of “fate” — fate without attributing it to the Gods.

But the same evolved into the English sort because, your fate, your lot in life sorted you into a class, a rank. In the hierarchical view of the world (which the Romans had) everything and everyone existed in degrees. So your fate was also your portion: what you were given. Thus, the ranking of everything by degrees is… a sorting.

This, too, explains the other definition of the word lot: not only your fate but the portion that has been allocated to you.

The Spanish for “to scratch”, rasgar, comes from the Latin secare, “to cut.”

From the same root, we also get the English Section.

A section, indeed, is just a cut into different parts. And a scratch is really almost a cut as well!

We can see the parallel in mapping the s-ct of section to the s-g of rasgar. Although the -ct- sound didn’t commonly turn into a -g-, we can hear the guttural connection if we sound it out.

Ventana, Spanish for “window,” comes from the Latin ventus, for “wind.” From the same root, we get the English… dum dum dum… ventilation. Vent and vent: both push back against the wind!

Apretar (Spanish for “to squeeze”) comes from the Latin pectus, meaning, “chest.” Think of having a heart attack: your chest feels squeezed. It’s not a coincidence that doctors in the USA today still call a heart attack, angina pectoris — that is, “angina of the chest” since pectoral in English today still means “relating to the chest”! The p-t maps to the p-ct, with the -ct- just simplifying into its first -c- sound.

Related: see also Pecho/Pectoral. From the same pectus root, we see other interesting words, following the ch/ct pattern.

Maroon (in the sense of “being stranded”) comes from an old Spanish word cimárron (via French) which used to mean “wild”. Although this original Spanish word is no longer in use, it comes from cima meaning “summit (such as of a mountain)” — which is still a common word. Wild animals, after all, stayed at the tops of the mountains since humans encroached from the bottom.

The -m- (finishing up cima and starting maroon) is the only surviving commonality between both words today.

Disheveled — as in, having messy hair! — comes from the same Latin root as the Spanish cabello, meaning “hair” or “a head of hair.” Both of these come from the Latin capillus, meaning hair.

We can see the pattern more clearly if we remember the dis- prefix at the beginning of disheveled: thus the (d)-sh-v-l of disheveled maps to the c-p-ll of capello.

Also from the same Latin root capillus, we get the English capillary. A capillary, after all, looks just like a thin strand of hair.