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!

Vestirse (Spanish for, “to get dressed”) comes from the Latin for the same, Vestire. Some fun English words that come from the same root include:

Vest– It makes sense since it is an article of clothing!

Invest– This originally meant, “to clothe” and was used in a metaphorical sense meaning, “to surround”. Your investors do surround you every moment–literally!

Travesty– This one is less obvious. Travesty originally meant, “dressed in a way to purposefully look ridiculous”. Ah! It does tie in to clothing!

Transvestite– Dressed in the clothing of… oh you know how this one ends 🙂

“To marry”, in Spanish, is casarse.

The funny part: casarse comes from the common Spanish word for “house”, casa. That makes sense: getting married is fundamentally about two people building a house together, metaphorically and literally.

In English, although marry is unrelated, two English words convey the same concept. Husband, in English, comes from the Old English “hus – bondi”, which mean, “House Dweller”: so the Husband is the one who lives in the house!

Even better: American slang hands down to us a lower version of the same concept, the slang phrase, “to shack up”, meaning, well, to either live together in sin — premaritally — or more recently, to have sex in a one-night stand. A shack, after all, is just a poor house.

The Spanish mullir (“to soften”) comes from the Latin mollis, meaning, “soft.” From that same Latin root we get the English… to mollify. To mollify in English is usually used in the sense of, “to appease” — and it’s noteworthy that appeasing IS softening. You need to be strong to not appease the bad guy, after all.

The m-ll root is clearly visible in both words.

Insolent derives from the Latin prefix in– (meaning, “the opposite of,” of course) and the Latin root solere, meaning, “to be used to (doing something).” So, an insolent man is literally someone who is used to not doing the things he is expected to do. That sounds pretty insolent to me!

From the same Latin root, we get the Spanish soler meaning “to be used to (doing something)” just like the original Latin root, before the negation. So next time you hear in Spanish, Suelo… (“I’m used to…”) you should think, “Don’t be insolent!”. No one will get the pun other than you, me, and our fellow ForNerds fans.

Note that this has no relation to the Spanish suelo meaning, “ground”, which comes from the Latin solum.

The days of the week in Spanish and English parallel each other in weird, eerie detail.

Lets start with the most obvious: Monday. It was originally the Moon-day — the day to worship the Moon.

The Latins felt the same way — and thus Lunes comes from Luna, the Latin for moon!

Stay tuned for the next installments, where it gets more interesting. A hint: Thursday = Thor’s Day; Jueves = Jove’s Day.

Allegiance is a very Roman idea: strong loyalty to your team, your empire.

So it’s not surprising that the word itself comes from the Latin, ligare — to bind. Your allegiance is what binds you or ties you to your team.

From the Latin ligare, we get the Spanish… ligar, meaning the same, tying or binding!

Thus, the l-g root is clearly visible in both versions.

Tornar (“to turn”) has given us directly an English word: tornado. A tornado turns, doesn’t it? Since this word came into English directly from Spanish – the word is unchanged from its Spanish participle form. We can see the t-r root clearly in all. And, if we go back a bit further, both words are also related to the English… turn.