Quejar, Spanish for “to complain” doesn’t seem related to any English equivalent.
But upon closer look, it is a first cousin of both quash and squash.
How so?
All come from the Latin quassare, meaning, “to shatter.”
The relationship is easy to see if we remember that the Spanish ‑j- sound used to be the Latin ‑s- sound (and many variants, like ‑ss‑, ‑si‑, ‑sy‑, ‑sh‑, ‑ch‑, etc).
Thus, the qu‑j for quejar maps to the qu-sh of quash and the sq-sh of squash.
Complaining, it seems, is a form of quashing (squashing?) your opponent!
