Spanish words from Latin
1854 Spanish words with Latin in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages (page 14).
hijo
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…
hilar
It is inherited from Late Latin fīlō (“to spin”), through Old Spanish filar. The Latin verb is formed from fīlum (“thread”) and is documented from the 4th century; Papias glosses Latin neō (“to…
hilo
It is inherited from Old Spanish filo, inherited from Latin fīlum (“thread”). The forms with /f/ held on in the transferred sense “cutting edge of a blade”, unknown in Latin but common to the…
hinojo
1. The word for fennel is inherited from Late Latin fenuculum (“fennel”), through Old Spanish finojo. The Late Latin form stands beside classical feniculum, and both are diminutives of fēnum…
historia
It is borrowed from Latin historia (“inquiry; account of past events”), taken over at an early date. The common medieval form estoria is semi-popular, while the modern spelling follows the Latin…
hogar
It is inherited from Old Spanish fogar, inherited from Vulgar Latin focāris, an adjective meaning “of the hearth” that replaced Latin focus (“hearth, fireplace”) in Hispania. The DLE describes the…
hoja
It is inherited from Old Spanish foja, inherited from Latin folia (“leaves”), the plural of folium (“leaf”). The Latin neuter plural was first a collective, “foliage”, and was later taken as a…
hombre
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…
hombro
It is inherited from Old Spanish ombro, inherited from Latin umerus (“shoulder”). The Latin spelling humerus is late and incorrect. Gómez de Silva puts its ⟨h⟩ down to hypercorrection. The learned…
honesto
It is borrowed from Latin honestus (“honourable, respected”), a learned word. The Latin adjective is formed from honōs (“honour”) with the adjective suffix -tus. De Vaan finds that its root can only…
hongo
It is inherited from Old Spanish fongo, inherited from Latin fungus (“mushroom, fungus”). The Latin word lives on as a popular word in Italian fungo and in the Raeto-Romance dialects; Portuguese…
honor
It is inherited from Latin honor (“honour, esteem”); Old Spanish had onor. Latin also had the older form honōs, which Cicero still preferred. Its origin is unknown: de Vaan notes that the Latin root…
hora
It is inherited from Latin hōra (“hour”), which was borrowed from Greek ὥρα (hṓra, “period of time, division of the day, hour”). The same Latin word is Portuguese hora, Catalan hora, French heure…
hornaza
It continues inherited from Latin fornax (“furnace, kiln”) through Old Spanish fornaz; because the noun was feminine it later took a secondary -a. The Latin word is related to furnus (“oven”), the…
horrible
It is borrowed from Latin horribilis (“terrifying, dreadful”), a learned word. The Latin adjective is formed from horreō (“to bristle, to stand on end; to shudder”) with the suffix -bilis. The Latin…
horror
It is borrowed from Latin horror (“a bristling; shuddering; dread”), a noun of horreō (“to bristle, shudder”). Old Spanish also had a popular form with another suffix, Old Spanish horrura, used by…
hospital
It is a learned word, borrowed from Late Latin hospitāle (“hospice, guesthouse”), the noun use of Latin hospitālis (“of a guest; hospitable”). Gómez de Silva describes hospitāle as the guest room of…
hoy
It is inherited from Latin hodiē (“today”); the Old Spanish form was oy. The Latin adverb is a compound of hic (“this”) and diēs (“day”), literally “on this day”. De Vaan takes the second part as an…
hoz
1. The word for the sickle is inherited from Old Spanish foz, inherited from Latin falx (“sickle, scythe, pruning hook”). The Academy's dictionary of 1726–1739 notes the old form, and Cabrera traced…
huérfano
It is inherited from Late Latin orphanus (“orphan”), from Ancient Greek ὀρφανός (orphanós, “orphan, fatherless”). Bénaben notes that the Church Latin word replaced the native Latin orbus (“bereft…
hueso
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin ossum, through Old Spanish huesso, a popular variant of the classical Latin os (“bone”). The Romance languages kept only the popular form, which Corominas says was…
huésped
It is inherited from Old Spanish huésped, inherited from Latin hospes (“host; guest”). The Latin word meant both the host who receives a stranger and the guest who is received, and Spanish inherited…
huevo
It is inherited from Old Spanish uevo, inherited from Vulgar Latin *ŏvum, the popular pronunciation with an open /ɔ/ of Latin ōvum (“egg”). The open vowel, assumed by all the Romance forms…
huir
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…
humano
It is borrowed from Latin hūmānus (“of a human being, human”). Corominas notes that, although it is frequent at every period and found in all the Romance languages, it usually appears in learned…
humo
It is inherited from Old Spanish fumo, inherited from Latin fūmus (“smoke”). The same word is common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese fumo, Galician fume, Catalan fum, Occitan fum, Italian…
humor
It is borrowed from Latin hūmor (“moisture, liquid; a fluid of the body”). The classical spelling has no ⟨h⟩; the spelling with ⟨h⟩, found in the later Roman Empire, is put down to the influence of…
identidad
It is borrowed from Late Latin identitas (“sameness”). The Late Latin word was an artificial formation on idem (“the same”), made on the model of ens (“being”) and entitas (“entity”) to translate…
idiota
It is borrowed from Latin idiōta (“layman; uneducated person”), from Ancient Greek ἰδιώτης (idiṓtēs, “private person; layman; ignorant person”). The BDELC takes it straight from the Greek word…
iglesia
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin eclesia, the Vulgar Latin form of Latin ecclēsia (“assembly of the people; assembly of the first Christians”), with a semi-learned development; Old Spanish had…
ignorar
It is a learned word, inherited from Old Spanish ignorar, borrowed from Latin ignōrō (“to have no knowledge of, be unaware of”). Corominas describes the Latin verb as a negative formation on the…
igual
It is inherited from Old Spanish egual, inherited from Latin aequālis (“of the same size or age; equal”), from aequus (“flat, smooth, even; equal”). egual is Berceo's usual form, but igual already…
igualmente
It is formed from Spanish igual (“equal”) + -mente (“-ly”). The earliest texts write it Old Spanish egualmente, egualmientre, egualmiente and ygual mente, with the older form of the adjective…
ijada
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *īliāta, a Romance derivative of Latin īlia (“flanks, lower belly”). The same formation is Catalan illada, in Jaume Roig, and the Old Aragonese illada of the Poema…
imagen
It is borrowed from Latin imāgō (“representation, portrait, image”). Frequent at all periods, it soon became a popular word as a religious term. The form omagen in the Libro de Alexandre has a match…
imaginación
It is borrowed from Latin imāginātiō, the noun of action of imāginor (“to picture to oneself”), from imāgō (“image, likeness”). Corominas lists it among the derivatives of imagen, beside imaginar…
imaginar
It is borrowed from Latin imāginor (“to picture to oneself, imagine”), formed from imāgō (“image, likeness”). From the variant maginar comes the popular noun magín “wits, imagination”, first in the…
imperfecto
It is borrowed from Latin imperfectus (“unfinished, incomplete”), a learned word. The Latin adjective is formed in- (“not”) and perfectus (“finished, perfect”), the past participle of perficiō (“to…
imperio
It is borrowed from Latin imperium (“command; supreme power; empire”), a learned word first recorded in Berceo. The inherited word of the same family is emperador, a semi-learned form of Latin…
impersonal
It is borrowed from Latin impersōnālis (“impersonal”), a term of Latin grammar. Autoridades in 1734 already called the word “taken from the Latin”. The Latin adjective is used of verbs by the…
importar
It is a learned borrowed from Latin importāre (“to bring in; to cause, entail”). Corominas thinks the figurative sense, from which “to matter” comes, arose in Late Latin, since it is shared by all…
imposible
It is borrowed from Latin impossibilis (“impossible”), one of the learned words of the family of poder. The Latin adjective is formed from in- (“not”) and possibilis (“possible”), which in turn is…
impostor
It is borrowed from Latin impostor (“deceiver, charlatan”), first recorded at the beginning of the 17th century, at the same time as impostura. García de Diego takes it instead from Italian…
impotente
It is borrowed from Latin impotēns (“powerless, weak”). Corominas lists it among the learned words of the article on poder and dates it to Nebrija, and impotencia to the Corbacho and Nebrija. This…
impresión
It is borrowed from Latin impressiō (“a pressing; an onset; an impression”), a learned word. The Latin noun is formed from imprimō (“to press into, stamp”) with -tiō. The verb is formed from in- and…
inaccesible
It is borrowed from Late Latin inaccessibilis (“unapproachable”), a post-classical word found in Tertullian, Servius and a panegyric of Mamertinus. Autoridades in 1734 explained it as a compound of…
incendio
It is borrowed from Latin incendium (“fire, conflagration”), a learned word. The Latin noun is formed from incendō (“to set on fire”) with the suffix -ium, and the verb from in- and candeō (“to…
incitar
It is borrowed from Latin incitō (“to set in rapid motion; to urge on, rouse”). Vox dates the borrowing to the 15th century. Corominas groups it with concitar and suscitar, parallel learned…
indiano
According to Gómez de Silva it is borrowed from Medieval Latin indianus (“of India”), formed from India with the suffix -ānus. The plural ⟨Indias⟩ was first applied to a vaguely defined region of…
indicativo
It is borrowed from Latin indicātīvus (“indicative”), a post-classical term of the grammarians Diomedes and Priscian. In grammar the Latin word qualified modus (“mood”), the mood so called because…
indigente
It is borrowed from Latin indigēns (“needy”), the present participle of indigeō (“to need, lack”). The OLD, Wiktionary, Bénaben and Gómez de Silva analyse the verb as indu- (“in”) and egeō (“to…
índigo
It is borrowed from Latin indicus (“of India”), so called because the dye was brought from India. Corominas thinks it probably came through Genoese or Venetian. Gómez de Silva and Bénaben start from…
industrioso
It is borrowed from Latin industriōsus (“very active, diligent”), a post-Augustan adjective that Wiktionary calls Late Latin. It is formed on industria (“activity, diligence”), which comes from the…
infancia
It is borrowed from Latin īnfantia (“inability to speak; early childhood”), a learned word. The Latin noun is formed from īnfāns (“unable to speak; small child”) with the suffix -ia. That word is…
infectar
Corominas and the Academy's 2001 dictionary consider it borrowed from Latin īnfectāre (“to taint”), which Corominas calls the frequentative of īnficiō. The current DLE instead derives it from French…
infidelidad
It is a learned borrowing, borrowed from Latin infidelitās (“faithlessness, inconstancy”). Corominas lists it under the family of fe, after infiel. The same Latin word is Portuguese infidelidade…
infierno
It is inherited from Latin īnfernum (“the underworld; hell”), the same in Old Spanish, infierno. The Latin noun meant the dwelling of the gods of the underworld; it is the neuter of īnfernus (“of…
inflar
It is borrowed from Latin īnflō (“to blow into, inflate”), a learned doublet of the inherited hinchar. The DCECH dates the learned word from Juan de Mena. DICCA-XV calls it instead the Aragonese…
información
It is borrowed from Latin īnfōrmātiō (“formation, conception; teaching”), a noun formed from īnfōrmō (“to give shape to; to describe; to instruct”). The Latin verb is in- and fōrmō (“to form…
ingreso
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin ingressus (“a going in, entry”), the action noun of ingredior (“to go in, enter”), itself formed on gradior (“to walk, step”). The same Latin noun was taken…