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.

Acabar — the everyday Spanish word meaning “just”, “finish”, and, wait for it “to ejaculate” (don’t ask how I learned the last definition!) — comes from the Latin caput, meaning “head”.

Thus, it has a parallel in the English expression: to bring to a head. Although that phrase doesn’t exactly mean to finish (it means, to force a decision to be made, basically), it is a similar concept: bringing about a totality that finishes or just about finishes something that had been happening.

Thus, etymology proves the common-sense wisdom that it’s easy to start something… but it requires real intelligence, a head, to finish what you start.

País (Spanish for “country”) comes from the Latin pagus meaning “countryside”. From that same root, we also get the English… pagan.

Funny how belief in traditional gods was a feature of people living far from the cities… even back then. The more things change, the more they remain the same!

Only the initial p– sound has been retained in both.

Afinar, meaning “to tune” — as in, you tune your guitar — comes from the Latin finis, meaning, “border”: tuning a guitar is really finding the exact border between this note and the other one.

From the same Latin root finis, we get English words such as fine, refine (remember the re– prefix is just an intensifier), as well as the English finish.

Tuning your guitar, in other words, really is an act of refining the sounds.

The f-n root is clearly visible in all.

The Spanish trazar (“to draw up”) comes from the Latin tractus (“drawing.”) From that same root we get a few English words, including, trace. The t-r-z to t-r-c mapping is very clear here.

What’s more interesting are the other words that come from the Latin tractus. These include:

• Trait — A trait, after all, is just an outline of your personality
• Train — Think of the word “draw,” but in the other sense: the horse draws the carriage.
• Trattoria — The Italian restaurant draws you in with its awesome food!
• Tract — When you’ve drawn out your borders over land
• Treat — When you’ve drawn what you want out of the patient

Empatar (Spanish for “to tie” — in the sense of, both teams scoring equally) comes from the Latin pactum for, well, “pact, deal”.

The connection between teams being tied and a pact is interesting: both imply equality. A pact is a deal that both teams benefit from equally, because if they didn’t, they just wouldn’t enter into the pact! Without equality between the sides, it’s not a pact; it’s a “treaty”!

The p-t of empatar maps to the p-ct of pact, with the -ct- sound being simplified into just -t-, as often happened.

Autopista (Spanish for “highway”) comes from the words auto– (you can guess what that one means!) and pista, which is Spanish for “track” (think, train tracks, or the track that runners run on).

But where does pista come from? The Latin pistus (“to pound” — think of the motion of pounding something into dust as being a bit like the running around the track! Pounding the pavement!). From this Latin pistus, we get a few English words including… pizza (via Italian, of course! Think of the pounding needed to make the pizza dough!) and piston (the piston engine going in circles is a bit like running as well!).

Thus, we can see the p-st of autopista maps to the p-zz of pizza and the p-st of piston.

The Spanish for “blue,” azul, is originally an Arabic word referring to a particular type of valuable blue stone, the lapis lazuli. In Spanish, the word degraded over time, and the l- was lost (as though it was the French l’ for “the”) and we were left with azul for just “blue.”

The English for azure — which is really just a shade of blue! — comes from the same root, although azure still retains a luxury connotation that was lost with the simple blue implication of azul in Spanish.

Many languages, including Spanish, have an -l- and -r- shift, where, over time, the -l- and -r- sounds are swapped. We see this here, as the a-z-l root of azul maps to the a-z-r root of azure.

The word Siesta — the famous long breaks! — comes from the Latin sexta hora (“sixth hour”), because it was the 6th hour after the 6am wake-up time when everyone would stop, take a break, and pray. We can see the s-s/x root in both — both coming from the same Proto-Indo-European word for “six.”

Interestingly, however, another English word comes from the same fountain: noon, which was originally nona hora, the 9th hour after the 6am wake-up time — time for another prayer! But — you must be wondering — noon is only 6 hours after 6am, not 9am hours! Excellent point, and the explanation is: the ninth hour prayers were originally at 3pm (9 hours after 6am), but over time, people started taking their breaks earlier and earlier and earlier…. surprise, surprise.

Amenazar (Spanish for “to threaten”) has a curious origin: from the Latin mine, meaning, “lead” or sometimes “silver.” Remember, this was the material that weapons — swords, arrowheads, etc. — were made of. If you don’t comply with my threat–I will hurt you!

Although this isn’t directly related to the English mine (the place where you get silver!), they might have the same original root–and it is an easy mnemonic. After all, we mine silver in the mines.