Spanish words

Spanish words have come into English via two routes, directly from European Spanish or from the Spanish of the Americas, often via borrowings into American English from those parts of the American West and South-west that were previously under Spanish control and which led to so many Spanish place names in California.

Spain’s trading past is reflected in the coconut [L16th] from Spanish or Portuguese coco ‘mask, head’ from the three face-like indentations at the bottom of the nut. Embargo [E17th], from embargar ‘arrest’, originally meant to stop ships entering or leaving your ports. Also maritime is the tornado [M16th], originally meaning a violent thunderstorm in the tropical Atlantic. It comes from tronada ‘thunderstorm’, perhaps influenced by tornar ‘to turn’. The cockroach [E17th] is a cucaracha in Spanish, a form that has been mangled by folk etymology in English to resemble more familiar words.

In 1605 Miguel de Cervantes published the first part of Don Quixote, and it had been translated into English by 1612. The book was an affectionate satire on the earlier chivalric romances that had been popular throughout Europe and was an international hit. Quixote was name after quijote (earlier quixote), the cuisse or thigh-piece of a suit of armour. Quixotic had entered English by 1718. A less happy aspect of Spanish history is found in guerrilla [E19th], a diminutive of guerra ‘war’ and originally used of the partisans who waged irregular warfare against Napoleon’s invasion of Spain.

Spanish architecture gives us the patio [M18th], originally the inner courtyard of a house, and Spanish heat the siesta [M17th] in the hottest part of the day, which goes back to Latin sexta hora ‘sixth hour of the day’.

The British have been importing wine from Spain since at least the Middle Ages, although sherry is not recorded before the late 16th century. It gets its name from Xeres (now Jerez), the town near which it is produced. The original form was sherries, changed when the final ‘s’ was misunderstood as a plural. The popularity of Spain as a tourist destination has introduced sangria [M20th], although an earlier form of red-wine drink was called sangaree [M18th]: both get their name from Spanish sangría ‘bleeding’ from the colour of the drink. Paella [L19th] gets its name from the shallow dish in which it is cooked, for it goes back to the Latin patella ‘small shallow dish’, which also gave us patella [L16th] as the anatomical name for the kneecap. Tapas [M20] were originally small, free savoury dishes served with drinks at a bar, traditionally served on a dish balanced on top of a glass, hence the name, for it literally means ‘cover’ or ‘lid’. Salsa [M19th] is simply the Spanish for ‘sauce’. In American Spanish this was extended to mean a saucy dance and its music [L20th]. Bonanza [E19th], Spanish for ‘fair weather, prosperity’ from Latin bonus ‘good’, was adopted into American English for a particularly successful mine, echoing El Dorado [L16th] ‘the gilded one’ that Sir Walter Raleigh believed was somewhere on the Amazon. Also introduced into American English are cinch [M19th], originally a saddle-girth used in Mexico (from Spanish cincha ‘girth’) and later transferred to mean something sure, safe, or easy; macho [M20] and its companion machismo [M20], again via Mexican Spanish but going back to Latin masculus, source also of male [LME] and masculine [LME]; palomino [E20th for the horse] from paloma ‘little dove’ referring to its colour; ranch [E19th] from rancho ‘group of persons eating together’, which originally referred to a building rather than land; and vamoose [M19th] from vamos ‘let’s go’.

See also boob, bracket, brave, breeze, busk, caste, chest, chocolate, cigar, comrade, contraband, cork, desperado, filibuster, flamingo, guarantee, hammock, jade, lace, lake, lozenge, lunch, maroon, moment, parrot, pot, potato, punt, salver, scuttle, sombre, spaniel, stiff, tobacco, traffic, turtle, vanilla, vigil, zebra.