Etapa (Spanish for “stage, level”) comes from old Dutch word (remember, the whole Spanish-Netherlands 80 years war? They did influence each other a lot!) stapel meaning, “deposit; store.”

The English staple comes from the Old German stapulaz (“pillar”) — from which we also get the Dutch stapel and then the Spanish etapa!

But how did a word meaning “pillar” become “stage” or “staple”? Well, a pillar holds up the next level — the next stage! (Think of floors in a building as being stages of development. Ultimately, we reach the penthouse!). Or think about the pillar — that which holds everything else up so it doesn’t fall — is the staple of the building, the most basic building block, to ensure it doesn’t collapse!

We can see the t-p root in both the English and Spanish words.

The Spanish apañar (“to fix, to rig”, as in “to fix the jury”) comes from the Latin pannus, which meant “cloth, garment or rag.” How did this transformation happen, as Latin turned into Spanish? Well, you use a cloth to tie people, which is one way of applying pressure — physically and metaphorically.

From the same Latin root pannus, we get the English… pane. As in a window pane. Here, the metaphorical meeting of the cloth or clothing took on the meaning of a divider — which divides one section from the other. Which is precisely the opposite meaning of its Spanish counterpart!

You can see the p-n root in both. And it’s always noteworthy that the Latin double n –nn– consistently transformed into the ñ in Spanish.

Izar (Spanish for “hoist” — as in, you hoist the flag) comes from the French hisser for the same, which itself comes from the old German words for the same, hissen. And from that German root, we get the English hoist itself. The i-z root of izar clearly maps to the hoi-s root of hoist.

Veda (Spanish for “closed season” such as, the time of year when you can’t hunt for your favorite beast) comes from the Latin vetare, which meant, “to forbid”.

In fact, from the same Latin root, we get the English… veto. Veto is actually the first-person conjugation in Latin: “I forbid!”

We can clearly see the that the v-d of veda maps to the v-t of veto.

It might be obvious to you that survive comes from the same root as vivir (Spanish, meaning “to live”), although that was not obvious to me at first despite both sharing the v-v-r root.

What is interesting, however, is the origin of survive–from the Latin super- (“to go over”) with the root vivire (“to live,” just as in vivir). Thus, to survive literally means “to live beyond” or “live past” other people — it is a purely comparative word! It’s not living; it’s living longer than someone else. This explains why its original sense and the first usages of the word were in the context of inheritances: he who survives the others gets the inheritance.

The Spanish for “cheap,” barato, and the English barter both come from the same root, the Old French barater, meaning, “to barter, cheat, deceive, haggle.”

The word, over time, lost most of its negative connotation in both languages — neither barato nor barter are particularly strong negative words — although both have that touch of uneasiness, that we try to feel we are better than.

Engañar is the common Spanish word meaning “to deceive” and is especially common in its meaning of “to cheat on [a spouse or girl/boyfriend].”

But who would have thought its related to the English ingenuous?

Both are, after all, forms of naïveté.

Both come from the Latin root gen-, meaning “to produce”. Think, genesis. After all, in the beginning, everything and everyone was naive.

Via the Greek parallels and Latin descendants, we get a myriad of modern words, including: genus and genius. There is a certain genius in deceiving, of course.

The Spanish for “bread,” pan, sounds nothing at all like its English equivalent.

But it is, indeed, a close cousin of another English word: companion.

All over the ancient world, bread was the sign of friendship and peace. Hence English phrases like, to “break bread.”

In Ancient Rome, your friend — literally, your companion — was someone you broke bread with. Companion, com – pan, con – pan = with bread.

Recinto (Spanish for “enclosure” or “facility”) comes from the Latin re– (which just adds emphasis) and the Latin cintus (a noun meaning “surrounding” – in the literal sense, of something that surrounds something else, like enclosing a circle around them; or similarly, “encircling.”)

From that same root, we get the English word precinct — which makes sense, since a precinct is really just a radius or… encircling to define a neighborhood.

More surprisingly from the same root is, cinch. This Latin word meaning a circling came to mean sword-belt (it is a belt that encircles you!), which then came to mean the Spanish cincha, meaning “girdle.” That then came back to English to mean, “a sure thing” and then “easy” — because your girdle stays on tightly to be a sure thing. It is a cinch!

1859, American English, “saddle-girth,” from Spanish cincha “girdle,” from Latin cingulum “a girdle, a swordbelt,” from cingere “to surround, encircle,” from PIE root *kenk- (1) “to gird, encircle” (cognates: Sanskrit kankate “binds,” kanci “girdle;” Lithuanian kinkau “to harness horses”). Replaced earlier surcingle. Sense of “an easy thing” is 1898, via the notion of “a sure hold” (1888).

We can see the c-n-t root clearly in recinto and precinct, and the very similar c-n-ch in cinch as well.

Enviar (Spanish for “To send”) comes from the Latin for the same, inviare. From that same root, we get the English… envoy. An envoy just sends a message, after all!

The e-n-v root is self-evident in both words. And the Latin inviare comes from the root via for “road”, from which we get endless English words, including… via!