Spanish words from Latin
1854 Spanish words with Latin in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages (page 10).
duro
It is inherited from Latin dūrus (“hard”). Old Spanish had the same form, duro. The same word is Portuguese duro, Galician duro, Catalan dur, Occitan dur, French dur, Italian duro, Sardinian duru…
echar
It is inherited from Old Spanish echar, inherited from Vulgar Latin *iectāre, a popular variant of Latin iactāre (“to throw, hurl; to toss about”), the frequentative of iaciō (“to throw”). The…
edad
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…
edificio
It is borrowed from Latin aedificium (“building”), a learned word. The Latin noun is formed from aedificō (“to build”) with the suffix -ium. The verb, which Spanish borrowed as edificar, is a…
editor
It is borrowed from Latin ēditor (“one who brings forth; giver of public shows”), which Corominas dates to Terreros's dictionary of 1765–1783. The Academy's 2001 dictionary also derives it from…
efecto
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin effectus (“execution, accomplishment; result”). The Latin noun is derived from efficiō (“to bring about, produce”), formed ex- and faciō (“to make, do”)…
ejemplar
The noun is borrowed from Latin exemplar (“copy; model, pattern”). The adjective is borrowed from Latin exemplāris (“serving as an example”). The Latin noun is formed from exemplum (“example…
ejemplo
It is inherited from Old Spanish exemplo, borrowed from Latin exemplum (“sample; example, model”). Old Spanish read the ⟨x⟩ with its native value /ʃ/ instead of the Latin /ks/; Wiktionary compares…
ejército
It is inherited from Old Spanish exército, borrowed from Latin exercitus (“physical exercise; army”), a learned word. The DCECH explains the Latin noun as properly “a body of men trained for war”…
el
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…
él
It is inherited from Latin ille (“that, that one”), in its stressed form. The unstressed form of the same Latin word became the article el. The feminine ella comes from illa and the neuter ello from…
elegancia
It is borrowed from Latin ēlegantia (“taste, refinement, grace”). Corominas dates it from 1479, in Diego de Valera, but the CDH has records in cancioneros copied between about 1430 and 1470. The…
embargar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *imbarricāre (“to bar, block”), a verb of Vulgar Latin or early Romance of this area, formed with in- on *barra (“bar, crossbar”). Corominas calls it a word common…
emperador
It is inherited from Old Spanish emperador, inherited from Latin imperātor (“one who commands; general; emperor”), in a semi-learned form. The REW explains why the word was not fully popular: the…
en
It is inherited from Latin in (“in, into”), already Old Spanish en. Corominas leaves its history to the grammars. Latin in, written en in the Duenos inscription, goes back to Proto-Italic *en and…
encarnación
It is borrowed from Late Latin incarnātiō (“incarnation”), the Church Latin noun. Spanish relates it to the verb encarnar, recorded from Berceo, and DICCA-XV and Wiktionary also analyse it as that…
encontrar
It is generally considered inherited from Vulgar Latin *incontrare (“to meet, come up against”), formed on the phrase in contrā (“against, facing”). Corominas lists it among the derivatives of…
enebro
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin jiniperus (“juniper”), the Vulgar Latin form of Latin iūniperus. This form is in the Appendix Probi, and a glossary spelling ⟨inipyrus⟩ also points to it. Corominas…
enemigo
It is inherited from Old Spanish enemigo, inherited from Latin inimīcus (“unfriendly; personal enemy”). The Latin word is the privative of amīcus (“friend”), formed with in- (“not”), and the latter…
enemistad
It is inherited from Old Spanish enemiztad, inherited from Vulgar Latin *inimīcitās (“enmity”), which replaced Latin inimīcitia. The Vulgar Latin noun was built on inimīcus (“personal enemy”) with…
energía
It is borrowed from Late Latin energīa (“energy, efficiency”), from Ancient Greek ἐνέργεια (enérgeia, “activity, force in action”). The Latin word is used by Saint Jerome. The Greek noun is formed…
enero
It is inherited from Old Spanish enero, earlier ianero and jenero, inherited from Vulgar Latin ienuārius (“January”), the form of Latin Iānuārius that many Latin inscriptions show. Italian gennaio…
engañar
It is inherited from Old Spanish engañar, inherited from Late Latin ingannāre (“to mock, make fun of”). Corominas notes that this Vulgar Latin verb is recorded shortly before the 9th century, and…
enorme
It is borrowed from Latin ēnormis (“irregular; immense”), a learned word recorded in the 13th century and in general use from the 15th. Corominas dates it 1438. The Latin adjective is formed from…
ensayo
It is inherited from Late Latin exagium (“a weighing”), a Late Latin word of the same family as the classical exigō (“to weigh, examine”) and exāmen (“a weighing, examination”). Wiktionary describes…
enseñar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin īnsignāre (“to mark, designate”), a verb of the glossaries that replaced Latin īnsignīre in popular speech. It is formed with in- on signō (“to mark”), from signum…
entender
It is inherited from Old Spanish entender, inherited from Latin intendō (“to stretch out, direct”). Applied to the mind, the Latin verb meant “to turn one's attention”, hence “to hear” and “to…
entero
It is inherited from Latin integer (“untouched, intact, whole”), in the Vulgar Latin pronunciation intēgrum with the stress on the second syllable. Since Latin /ɡr/ between vowels normally gave…
enterrar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *interrāre (“to put into the earth”), formed from Latin terra (“earth”) with the prefix in-. Corominas lists it among the derivatives of tierra, and the Academy's…
entonces
It is inherited from Old Spanish entonces, inherited from Vulgar Latin *intunce, a compound of Latin in (“in”) and archaic *tunce, from which classical tunc (“then”) comes. The Academy derives the…
entraña
It is inherited from Latin interānea (“intestines, guts”), the neuter plural of the adjective interāneus (“internal”) used as a noun. The same Latin word gave Portuguese entranha and Catalan…
entrar
It is inherited from Old Spanish entrar, inherited from Latin intrāre (“to enter”). The Glosas Silenses still have the Latin-looking spelling ⟨intrato⟩. The Latin verb is formed from intrā…
entre
It is inherited from Latin inter (“between, among”). The same Latin word is Portuguese entre, Galician entre, Asturian ente, Catalan entre, French entre and Romanian între. Old Portuguese also had…
enviar
It is inherited from Late Latin inviāre (“to travel over (a road)”), formed from in- (“in, on”) and Latin via (“road, way”). Used transitively, the Late Latin verb came to mean “to send someone…
envidar
It is inherited from Latin invītō (“to entertain, invite; to challenge”), the hereditary doublet of the learned invitar. Meyer-Lübke notes that the Romance outcomes of the Latin verb mean “to…
envidia
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin invidia (“ill will, envy”). The Latin noun is formed from invidus (“envious”) with the suffix -ia, and this from the verb invideō (“to look at with ill…
epíteto
It is borrowed from Latin epitheton (“epithet, adjective”), a grammarians' term taken from Ancient Greek ἐπίθετον (epítheton), literally “something added”. The Greek word is the neuter of ἐπίθετος…
era
1. The word for a reckoning of years is borrowed from Late Latin aera (“number, figure; era”), originally the plural of Latin aes (“bronze; money; amount”), treated as a feminine singular. In Latin…
error
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin error (“a wandering; doubt, mistake”). The Latin noun is formed from errō (“to wander, stray; to be mistaken”) with the suffix -or. The popular noun of the…
escala
It is inherited from Latin scāla (“step; ladder”). Latin mostly used the word in the plural for “steps”, “ladder” or “staircase”, but some late authors used the singular in this sense. Because the…
escandaloso
It is formed from Spanish escándalo + -oso, and is recorded from the second quarter of the 15th century, in Pérez de Guzmán. The DLE treats it as a learned borrowing, borrowed from Latin scandalōsus…
escapar
It is inherited from Old Spanish escapar, inherited from Vulgar Latin *excappāre (“to get out of an encumbrance”). The Vulgar Latin verb is formed from ex- (“out”) and cappa (“cape, cloak”), because…
escaso
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excarsus (“picked out, thinned”), from an older *excarpsus, the Vulgar Latin participle of Latin excerpō (“to pick out, select”). Wiktionary gives the intermediate…
escena
It is borrowed from Latin scaena (“stage; theatre”), also spelt scēna, a learned borrowing. The Latin word is from Ancient Greek σκηνή (skēnḗ, “tent, booth; stage building”). The OLD puts the change…
esclavo
It is borrowed from Medieval Latin sclavus (“slave”), which is from Byzantine Greek σκλάβος (sklábos, “Slav; slave”). Corominas thinks the word reached Castilian indirectly, most likely through…
esconder
It is inherited from Latin abscondō (“to hide, conceal”), first as inherited from Old Spanish asconder; the prefix ⟨a-⟩ was later replaced by ⟨es-⟩. García de Diego and Gómez de Silva put the change…
escribir
It is inherited from Old Spanish escrivir, inherited from Vulgar Latin *scrībīre, from Latin scrībō (“to write”). The verb passed from the third conjugation to the verbs in /-ir/, and Latin initial…
escrutinio
It is borrowed from Latin scrūtinium (“search, examination”), a learned word. The Latin noun is derived from scrūtor (“to search, examine”), with an obscure ending, and first meant a search for…
escuchar
It is inherited from Old Spanish ascuchar, inherited from Vulgar Latin ascultō, a dissimilated form of Latin auscultō (“to listen attentively”). Corominas takes the dissimilated form as the common…
escudo
It is inherited from Old Spanish escudo, inherited from Latin scūtum (“shield”). The same Latin word is Portuguese escudo, Galician escudo, Catalan escut, Occitan escut, French écu, Italian scudo…
escuela
It is inherited from Latin schola (“lesson; school”); the Old Spanish form was already escuela. The Latin word is from Ancient Greek σχολή (skholḗ, “leisure, free time”), later “study” and “school”…
escupir
It is inherited from Old Spanish escupir, probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *exconspuere, a derivative of cōnspuō (“to spit upon”), which lost its second /s/ by dissimilation. It is formed from…
ese
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…
esencial
It is borrowed from Late Latin essentiālis, formed Latin essentia (“essence”) + -ālis. The DCECH lists it among the learned derivatives of ser and dates it about 1580, in Saint Teresa and Fray Luis…
esfera
It is borrowed from Latin sphaera (“ball, globe”), which is from Ancient Greek σφαῖρα (sphaîra, “ball, sphere”). Wiktionary takes it from the late form Late Latin sphēra. Latin had the spelling…
espacio
It is inherited from Latin spatium (“racecourse; extent, space”), which Corominas calls a semi-learned descendant. Wiktionary and García de Diego treat it as a learned word taken from Latin. The…
espacioso
It is borrowed from Latin spatiōsus (“spacious, extensive”), as the Academy's dictionary and Wiktionary give it. Corominas lists it among the derivatives of espacio, itself a semi-learned descendant…
espada
It is inherited from Latin spatha (“broad, long sword; weaver's batten, spatula”); Old Spanish espada has the same form. Latin had borrowed the word from Ancient Greek σπάθη (spáthē, “any broad…
espalda
It is inherited from Old Spanish espalda, inherited from Late Latin spatula (“shoulder blade; earlier spatula, blade of certain tools”). The name passed from the tool to the bone because both are…
especial
It is borrowed from Latin speciālis (“particular, special”). The Latin adjective is formed from speciēs (“kind, type; appearance”) with the suffix -ālis, and DICCA-XV traces the noun to speciō (“to…