Spanish words from Latin
1854 Spanish words with Latin in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages (page 31).
veneno
It is inherited from Old Spanish venino, inherited from Medieval Latin venīnum, from the classical Latin venēnum (“drug; poison”). Corominas puts the change of ending down to the very frequent…
vengar
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…
venir
It is inherited from Old Spanish venir, inherited from Latin venīre (“to come”). It has been in use at all periods and survives in every Romance language. The same Latin verb is Portuguese vir…
ventana
It is inherited from Old Spanish ventana, inherited from Vulgar Latin *ventāna, from Latin ventus (“wind”) and the suffix -āna. Corominas and the DLE treat it as a derivative of the word for wind…
ventilación
It is borrowed from Late Latin ventilātiō (“winnowing; airing”), a learned borrowing. Corominas lists it among the learned words of the family of viento, beside ventilar, which he dates 1490 and…
ver
It is inherited from Old Spanish veer, inherited from Latin videō (“to see”). The modern form is already in the manuscript of the Cid, but Corominas notes that this proves only that it was in use in…
verbo
It is borrowed from Latin verbum (“word; verb”). The Old Spanish form vierbo alternated with verbo, and Corominas explains the wavering by the semi-learned character of the word; he doubts that any…
verdad
It is inherited from Latin vēritās (“truth, reality”), which Wiktionary and Gómez de Silva derive from the accusative form. The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid, and vertat is an archaic…
verde
It is inherited from Old Spanish verde, inherited from Late Latin virdis (“green”), the syncopated form of Latin viridis (“green; vigorous, lively, young”). All the Romance languages start from this…
verga
It is inherited from Latin virga (“shoot, twig; rod”). The stressed short i of the Latin word gives ⟨e⟩, as in Portuguese verga, Galician verga, Catalan verga, Italian verga and French verge…
vergüenza
It is inherited from Old Spanish vergüença, inherited from Latin verēcundia (“restraint, modesty; shame”). DICCA-XV takes it from a semi-learned form vergundia. Bénaben explains the diphthong by a…
versión
It is borrowed from Medieval Latin versiō (“change, transformation; translation”), a learned derivative of Latin vertō (“to turn”). Medieval Latin formed the action noun from the verb with the…
vestir
It is inherited from Latin vestīre (“to clothe, dress”), used in Spanish in every period and common to all the Romance languages. The same verb is Portuguese vestir, Galician vestir, Asturian…
vez
It is inherited from Latin vicis (“turn, alternation; place, office”), used in the accusative ⟨vicem⟩ and the ablative ⟨vice⟩. The Latin word has no attested nominative singular; the Academy's…
vía
It is inherited from Latin via (“road, street; journey”). The same Latin word survives in all the western Romance languages: Portuguese via, Catalan via, Occitan via, French voie and Italian via. De…
vibración
It is borrowed from Latin vibrātiō (“a brandishing, shaking”), a noun of action from vibrō (“to move rapidly to and fro, brandish”). Spanish analyses it as vibrar with -ción; Corominas dates the…
vibrar
It is borrowed from Latin vibrō (“to brandish, shake; to quiver”), a learned word. Corominas dates it from 1599, with a single earlier use in 1438; the CDH has it in Enrique de Villena's translation…
víctima
It is borrowed from Latin victima (“animal offered in sacrifice”), a learned word. The same Latin word was borrowed as French victime about 1485, Portuguese vítima in 1572 and Catalan víctima in…
victoria
It is borrowed from Latin victōria (“victory”), from victor (“conqueror”). Autoridades already called it “a purely Latin word”. The same Latin word gave Portuguese vitória, Galician vitoria and…
victorioso
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin victōriōsus (“abounding in victories”). The Latin adjective is formed from victōria (“victory”) with the suffix -ōsus. The noun is from victor…
vid
It is inherited from Latin vītis (“grapevine; vine stock; rod”). The BDELC glosses the Latin word “vine (the stock or the species)” and “small rod”. Portuguese vide, Galician vide and Asturian vide…
vida
It is inherited from Latin vīta (“life”). The same word is Portuguese vida, Galician vida, Catalan vida, Occitan vida, French vie and Italian vita; Romanian vită has come to mean “living creature…
vidrio
It is inherited from Latin vitreum (“an object of glass”), the neuter of vitreus (“of glass”), derived from vitrum (“glass”). Latin called the material itself by the noun, while the neuter plural of…
viejo
It is inherited from Old Spanish viejo, inherited from Vulgar Latin veclus, the reduced form of Latin vetulus (“somewhat old, elderly”), which was a diminutive of vetus (“old”). Vulgar Latin…
viento
It is inherited from Latin ventus (“wind”), already viento in the oldest texts. It has been in general use in every period and survives in all the Romance languages: Portuguese vento, Galician…
vientre
It is inherited from Old Spanish vientre, inherited from Latin venter (“belly, abdomen”). Wiktionary derives the Spanish form from the Latin accusative. Corominas notes that the word has been in…
viernes
It is inherited from Latin diēs Veneris (“day of Venus”), shortened to its second word, Veneris, the genitive of the goddess's name. The Roman name translates the Greek “day of Aphrodite”. The…
vigilante
It is borrowed from Latin vigilans (“watchful, wakeful”), the present participle of vigilāre (“to stay awake, keep watch”), a learned word that the BDELC and Segura date to about 1580. Bénaben…
vil
It is inherited from Old Spanish vil, inherited from Latin vīlis (“cheap; of little worth”). The same word is Portuguese vil, Catalan vil, French vil, Italian vile and Romanian vil. De Vaan explains…
villa
It is inherited from Latin villa (“country house, farm”), which also named the residence outside Rome where ambassadors were lodged when they were not allowed into the city. In charters of the 10th…
viña
It is inherited from Old Spanish vinna, inherited from Latin vīnea (“vines in a vineyard; vineyard”), the feminine of vīneus (“of wine”) used as a noun, from vīnum (“wine”). Corominas notes that the…
vino
It is inherited from Latin vīnum (“wine”). Old Spanish had the form vino, also written bino. The word is common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese vinho, Galician viño, Asturian vinu, Catalan…
viola
1. The word for the musical instrument is borrowed from Italian viola. Corominas explains it as a phonetic variant of vihuela taken from Italian for a different instrument. The 2001 edition of the…
violento
It is borrowed from Latin violentus (“violent, impetuous”), a learned word taken into Spanish as early as Berceo. Corominas derives the Latin adjective from vīs (“force, power, violence”). The OLD…
virgen
It is inherited from Old Spanish virgen, borrowed from Latin virgō (“girl of marriageable age; virgin”), from the stem of its accusative. Corominas calls it a word taken from Latin, and Cejador a…
virginidad
It is borrowed from Latin virginitās (“maidenhood, virginity”). The Latin noun is formed from virgō (“maiden, virgin”) with the suffix -tās, which gives Spanish -dad. Corominas treats it under…
virus
It is borrowed from Latin vīrus (“juice; venom, poison”). Medieval Latin added the sense “pus”, which is the sense of the first Spanish records, in 15th-century medical texts. Louis Pasteur gave the…
visibilidad
It is borrowed from Late Latin vīsibilitās (“visibility”), the abstract noun of vīsibilis (“visible”). Corominas lists it under ver, beside visible, which Spanish took from the Latin adjective about…
visión
It is borrowed from Latin vīsiō (“the act of seeing; sight”), a learned word. The Latin noun is formed from videō (“to see”) with the suffix -tiō. De Vaan traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European…
visionario
It is formed from Spanish visión + -ario. Corominas lists it among the learned derivatives in the article on ver, beside visión, which is from Latin visio (“sight, vision”). Echegaray and Barcia…
visitar
It is borrowed from Latin vīsitō (“to see often, go to see”), a learned word. The Latin verb is a frequentative from Latin vīsō (“to look at, go to see”) + -itō, and the base verb is in turn formed…
viudo
It continues inherited from Latin viduus (“deprived of a spouse, widowed”). The feminine viuda, from vidua, is recorded from about 1140, the masculine only from 1495. Bénaben and Wiktionary take the…
vivir
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…
vivo
It is inherited from Old Spanish bivo, inherited from Latin vīvus (“alive, living”). The spelling with initial b was not arbitrary but the result of a normal dissimilation, as in bivir and bolver…
vocación
It is borrowed from Latin vocātiō (“a calling, summons; invitation”). The Latin noun was formed from vocō (“to call”), itself a derivative of vōx (“voice”), the source of voz. In classical Latin it…
volar
It is inherited from Latin volō (“to fly”). The verb is found in every period of Spanish and in all the Romance languages. Wiktionary names volear as its doublet. The same Latin verb is Portuguese…
voluntad
It is inherited from Old Spanish voluntad, inherited from Latin voluntās (“will, choice”), taken from the accusative. Corominas and Wiktionary treat it as a semi-learned word that became part of the…
vos
It is inherited from Latin vōs (“you (plural)”). The same pronoun is Portuguese vós, Galician vós, Asturian vós, Catalan vós, Occitan vos, French vous, Italian voi and Romanian voi. vōs continues…
voz
It is inherited from Old Spanish voz, inherited from Latin vox (“voice”). Corominas notes that the word has been in popular use in every period. Wiktionary suggests that the sense “word, term” is a…
vuestro
It is inherited from Latin voster (“your (of several people)”). Corominas takes it for the Vulgar Latin form that everywhere replaced classical vester, under the joint influence of noster (“our”)…
y
It is inherited from Latin et (“and”), through Old Spanish e. The earliest texts write that form, and Nebrija (c. 1495) gives i beside it. The form e survives before words that begin with /i/. The…
ya
It is inherited from Old Spanish ya, inherited from Latin iam (“now, already”). The same word is Portuguese já, Galician xa, Asturian yá, Catalan ja and Italian già. French déjà is formed from dès…
yo
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…
zona
It is borrowed from Latin zōna (“girdle, belt; zone of the earth”), which is from Ancient Greek ζώνη (zṓnē, “girdle”), a derivative of ζώννυμι (zṓnnumi, “to gird”). The Greek noun goes back to…