500–401 BC

Spanish words from Latin words first recorded in the 5th century BC

65 Spanish words inherited from a Latin word whose earliest known written record dates from the 5th century BC, earliest Latin record first.

bogar
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin voco

According to the DCECH it is inherited from Latin vocō (“to call”), perhaps through Catalan vogar: the verb would first have named the call of the overseer who made the oarsmen pull together and…
cosa
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin causa

It is inherited from Latin causa (“cause, reason; matter, question”), and Old Spanish cosa has the same form. In Vulgar Latin the word, starting from the sense “matter, affair”, became a synonym of…
falso
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin falsus

It is inherited from Old Spanish falso, inherited from Latin falsus (“false”), properly the past participle of fallō (“to deceive”). The same Latin word is Portuguese falso, Catalan fals, Occitan…
fruto
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin fructus

It is inherited from Old Spanish fruto, inherited from Latin frūctus (“enjoyment, usufruct; produce, fruit”), in a semi-learned form. Wiktionary treats it as a learned borrowing and sets it against…
haber
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin habeo

It is inherited from Old Spanish aver, inherited from Latin habēre (“to have, hold, possess”). The same Latin verb is Portuguese haver, Catalan haver, Asturian haber, Aragonese aber, French avoir…
hijo
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin filius

It is inherited from Old Spanish fijo, inherited from Latin fīlius (“son”). The word is common to all periods of Spanish and to all the Romance languages. The same Latin word gave Portuguese filho…
hombre
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin homo

It is inherited from Latin homo (“human being, man”); the Old Spanish form was omne. The Latin accusative ⟨hominem⟩ lost its unstressed middle vowel, giving ⟨omne⟩; this was dissimilated to omre…
huir
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin fugio

It is inherited from Old Spanish fuir, inherited from Vulgar Latin fugīre, the form Vulgar Latin used for the classical infinitive of Latin fugere (“to flee”). The Romance languages all point to…
ir
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin eo

It is inherited from Latin īre (“to go”). The Romance languages kept the infinitive of the Latin verb only in Spanish and Portuguese, in the Bearnese valleys of Aspe and Barétous and in some…
juez
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin iudex

It is inherited from Old Spanish júdez, inherited from Latin iudex (“judge”). Corominas calls it a semi-learned descendant: the accusative iudicem passed through júez, still of two syllables, to the…
justo
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin iustus

It is inherited from Old Spanish justo, inherited from Latin iūstus (“just, lawful”). Corominas sees no decisive reason to call it a learned word in any Romance language except French juste, and…
leer
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin lego

It is inherited from Old Spanish leer, inherited from Latin legō (“to gather, collect; to choose; to read”). Intervocalic /ɡ/ before /e/ was lost in Castilian, leaving the two vowels side by side…
lengua
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin lingua

It is inherited from Old Spanish lengua, inherited from Latin lingua (“tongue; speech, language”). The word is common to all periods of Spanish and to all the Romance languages. Latin had a short…
libra
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin libra

It is inherited from Old Spanish libra, inherited from Latin lībra (“pound (weight); pair of scales”). The same word is Portuguese libra, Galician libra, Asturian llibra and Catalan lliura, as well…
libre
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin liber

It is inherited from Latin līber (“free”), a semi-learned word. Wiktionary calls it probably a learned borrowing. Corominas explains the final ⟨-e⟩ by adaptation of the Latin nominative; he rejects…
llorar
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin ploro

It is inherited from Latin plōrō (“to cry out, wail”). The verb is used in every period and is common to all the Romance languages except Romanian, though modern Italian has lost it. It is…
luz
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin lux

It continues inherited from Latin lūx (“light”), genitive ⟨lūcis⟩. The word has had the same form since the earliest Old Spanish texts. Corominas notes that it is common to the Romance languages…
mayor
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin maior

It is inherited from Latin maior (“greater”), the comparative of magnus (“great”). The Leonese variant maor appears in the Libro de Alexandre. The same word is Portuguese maior, Italian maggiore…
miembro
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin membrum

It is inherited from Latin membrum (“part of the body, limb”). The Breve diccionario dates it to 1219; the corpus has it in a Castilian text of the Cortes de León dated 1208. The same Latin word is…
más
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin magis

It is inherited from Latin magis (“more”), through Old Spanish maes, later contracted to mas. The older form is found mainly in Leonese documents of 1222 and 1246, and mais in the Libro de Alexandre…
pena
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin poena

It is inherited from Old Spanish pena, inherited from Latin poena (“penalty, punishment”), itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek ποινή (poinḗ, “blood money, fine”). The Latin diphthong /oe/ became…
puerto
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin portus

It is inherited from Old Spanish puerto, inherited from Latin portus (“harbour entrance, harbour”). The same word is Portuguese porto, Galician porto, Asturian puertu, Catalan port, Occitan port…
romper
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin rumpo

It is inherited from Latin rumpō (“to burst, break”), already romper in the oldest texts. The word has been in general use in every period, and is common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese…
siervo
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin servus

It is inherited from Old Spanish sieruo, inherited from Latin servus (“slave”). The same Latin word is Portuguese servo, Galician servo, Asturian siervu, French serf and Italian servo. The origin of…
subir
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin subeo

It is inherited from Latin subeō (“to go under; to approach from below”), formed from sub- (“under”) and eō (“to go”). Already in some classical authors the Latin verb comes close to the Spanish…
tajar
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin talio

It is inherited from Late Latin tāliāre (“to cut, split”), a verb formed on tālea (“a cutting for planting; a stake”). Corominas and the DLE give the verb as Vulgar Latin, with ⟨e⟩ before the…
uno
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin unus

It is inherited from Latin ūnus (“one; only one; single”), Old Spanish uno. The indefinite article un has the same origin: it was at first only the apocopated form of the numeral, and in every…
veinte
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin viginti

It is inherited from Old Spanish veynte, inherited from Latin vīgintī (“twenty”). Menéndez Pidal and Corominas hold that the word was first stressed veínte; Berceo already contracts the two vowels…
vengar
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin vindico

It is inherited from Old Spanish vengar, inherited from Latin vindicō (“to claim; to set free; to avenge”). The more archaic Old Spanish vendegar occurs in Berceo. The learned doublet is vindicar…
vivir
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin vivo

It is inherited from Latin vīvere (“to live”); Old Spanish bivir is the usual medieval form. In Spanish the verb moved to the conjugation in ⟨-ir⟩, while the other Romance languages kept the Latin…
yo
451 BC–450 BC

from Latin eo

It is inherited from Old Spanish yo, inherited from Vulgar Latin eo, a reduction of Latin egō (“I”). Corominas attributes the loss of the /g/ to the heavy wear of a grammatical word; the reduced…
a
450 BC

from Latin ad

It is inherited from Latin ad (“to, towards”). The older form ad is found in Old Spanish, Portuguese, Galician and Catalan. Hispano-Latin documents, like Italian and Occitan, keep ⟨ad⟩ before a…
cabo
450 BC

from Latin caput

It is inherited from Latin caput (“head”); the Old Spanish form was already cabo. Wiktionary gives the intermediate form as Vulgar Latin *capus; Coromines notes that the neuter caput behaves in…
con
450 BC

from Latin cum

It is inherited from Latin cum (“with”), with the same form in Old Spanish con. The Latin final /m/ became /n/, as in quien from quem: Bénaben explains this by the loss of the contrast between…
cuando
450 BC

from Latin quando

It is inherited from Latin quandō (“when”); Old Spanish quando is recorded from the 10th century. The Latin word was both temporal, “when”, and causal, “since”, and replaced cum in these uses. The…
daño
450 BC

from Latin damnum

It is inherited from Old Spanish danno, inherited from Latin damnum (“loss, expense; harm”). The same Latin word is Portuguese dano, Galician dano, Asturian dañu, Catalan dany, Old Occitan dan…
de
450 BC

from Latin de

It is inherited from Old Spanish de, inherited from Latin dē (“from, down from; about”). In Latin the particle marked origin, moving away and separation, and as a prefix it formed verbs of privation…
defender
450 BC

from Latin defendo

It is inherited from Latin dēfendō (“to ward off, repel; to protect”), and Old Spanish defender has the same form from the 12th century on. Corominas calls it a very old semi-learned word, and…
doble
450 BC

from Latin duplus

It continues inherited from Latin duplus (“double”), or, as the DLE says, Latin duplex (“twofold”). The final ⟨-e⟩ is hard to explain. García de Diego derives it from the Latin adverb duple…
edad
450 BC

from Latin aetas

It continues inherited from Old Spanish edat, inherited from Latin aetās (“life, lifetime; age”). The Latin word is contracted from archaic aevitās, a derivative of aevum (“duration, time, life…
el
450 BC

from Latin ille

It is inherited from Latin ille (“that”) or its accusative, a demonstrative that in Late Latin was already used in popular speech as a mere article, with the sound changes of an unstressed word. The…
ese
450 BC

from Latin ipse

It is inherited from Latin ipse (“himself, the same”). The regular outcome was Old Spanish es, used in the Cid, the Libro de Alexandre and Berceo; it was replaced by ese on the model of este. Berceo…
fuerte
450 BC

from Latin fortis

It is inherited from Latin fortis (“strong, robust”), through Old Spanish fuerte. The stressed short /o/ of Latin became the diphthong /we/, written ⟨ue⟩. The same Latin word is Portuguese forte…
mano
450 BC

from Latin manus

It is inherited from Latin manus (“hand”), and Old Spanish mano has the same form from the first records. The word is general in every period and common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese mão…
menos
450 BC

from Latin minus

It is inherited from Latin minus (“less”), and Old Spanish menos has the same form in the earliest texts. The Latin adverb is the neuter of minor (“smaller, less”), which served as the comparative…
mujer
450 BC

from Latin mulier

It is inherited from Old Spanish mugier, inherited from Latin mulier (“woman; wife”). In Vulgar Latin the word was stressed on the second ⟨e⟩, muliére, unlike the classical stress on the first…
muy
450 BC

from Latin multum

It continues inherited from Old Spanish muito (“much”), shortened before adjectives and adverbs; the Old Spanish word is inherited from Latin multum (“much”), the adverbial neuter of multus (“much…
ni
450 BC

from Latin nec

It is inherited from Old Spanish nin, inherited from Latin nec (“and not, nor”). Old Spanish mostly wrote ⟨nin⟩, beside ⟨ni⟩ and the rarer nen. Old Leonese, Asturian and Galician also had ne. In the…
o
450 BC

from Latin aut

It is inherited from Old Spanish o, inherited from Latin aut (“or”). The same Latin word is Portuguese ou, Galician ou, Catalan o, French ou, Italian o and Romanian au. Early texts also have the…
oro
450 BC

from Latin aurum

It is inherited from Old Spanish oro, inherited from Latin aurum (“gold”). The Latin diphthong /au/ became /o/, as in toro from Latin taurus. The same word is Portuguese ouro, Galician ouro, Catalan…
parte
450 BC

from Latin pars

It is inherited from Latin pars (“part, share”), continuing its accusative; Old Spanish parte has the same form. The masculine noun, a courier's dispatch, is the same word; Covarrubias explains it…
pueblo
450 BC

from Latin populus

It is inherited from Latin populus (“people, body of citizens”). Old Spanish texts also write it poblo, publo, poulo and puebro, and Salamanca still has this form. The learned form of the same Latin…
pues
450 BC

from Latin post

It is inherited from Latin post (“after; behind”). Wiktionary gives a reduced form Vulgar Latin *pos as the intermediate stage. In late Latin the word also took the value of postquam (“after…
quince
450 BC

from Latin quindecim

It is inherited from Old Spanish quinze, inherited from Latin quīndecim (“fifteen”). The Latin numeral is a compound of quīnque (“five”) and decem (“ten”). The Latin word for five goes back to…
quién
450 BC

from Latin quis

It is inherited from Latin quem (“whom”), the accusative of the interrogative pronoun, used as a stressed word. Wiktionary takes it from the accusative of the relative quī. The unstressed relative…
se
450 BC

from Latin se

1. The reflexive pronoun is inherited from Latin sē (“oneself”), the accusative of the Latin reflexive pronoun. The same word is Portuguese se, Galician se, Catalan se, French se, Italian si and…
si
450 BC

from Latin si

It is inherited from Old Spanish si, inherited from Latin sī (“if”). The Latin conjunction had the older spelling ⟨sei⟩, still found in early inscriptions and in Plautus. The same Latin word is…
su
450 BC

from Latin suus

It is the unstressed form of suyo, used before the noun; both are inherited from Latin suus (“his, her, its own”). Corominas dates the stressed form, then súo, to the 11th century, and the reduced…
suyo
450 BC

from Latin suus

It is inherited from Old Spanish súo, inherited from Latin suus (“his, her, their own”). The form súo is recorded in the 11th century, and suyo appears about 1140, with the unstressed su beside it…
tú
450 BC

from Latin tu

It is inherited from Latin tū (“you (singular)”), its nominative case, and has been in use since the earliest Spanish texts. The other forms of the pronoun continue other Latin cases: te the…

All Spanish words inherited from Latin, by century →