The word 'insect' and related words of cutting: Part 5

[This entry comes from Chapter 4, "The word insect and related words of cutting", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

This is Part 5. Go to Part 1

Other words with the Latin root sĕc‑

Sp. segar and some false cognates

As we saw earlier, the Latin word insĕctus contained the root sĕc‑ of the Latin verb sĕcāre ‘to cut, slice, divide’ (in-sĕc-t-us). This verb is the source of patrimonial Sp. segar ‘to reap, cut, mow’. The primary, literal meaning of this verb is ‘to cut the harvest or grass with a sickle, scythe or other relevant instrument or machine’ (DLE).[1] The change from intervocalic Latin ‑c‑ to Old Spanish ‑g‑ is just what we would have expected in a patrimonial Spanish word, one that descended by word of mouth. Other words related to this Spanish verb are siega ‘harvesting, reaping; harvest time; harvest’ and segador ‘harvester, reaper’. Another Spanish verb for ‘to harvest, reap’ is cosechar, which has cosecha ‘harvest, crop’ as the derived noun. This verb comes from Lat. collĭgĕre ‘to gather, draw, bring or collect (together), etc.’ (earlier cogecha).

The passive participle of the Latin verb sĕcāre is sĕctus in the masculine and sĕcta in the feminine, which meant ‘cut off, divided’ and could be used as an adjective. Curiously, this word does not seem to be the source of Eng. sect ~ Sp. secta, though the form and the meaning of these words both suggest that such a derivation is plausible, for a sect is ‘a religious group or faction’ cut off from or ‘regarded as heretical or as deviating from orthodox tradition’ (COED) or a ‘subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, usually an offshoot of a larger group’ (WP).

The source of Eng. sect ~ Sp. secta seems to have been a different word sĕcta in Latin, a homonym of the one we just saw. This word sĕcta that was a variant form of the feminine passive participle sĕcūta ‘followed’ of the third conjugation deponent verb sequī ‘to follow’ (source of the patrimonial Spanish verb seguir ‘to follow’). This other Latin sĕcta came to be used as a noun meaning ‘a way, road, path’ and, from it, eventually, ‘doctrine, school, sect’. It is possible, however, that the form of this variant form was influenced by the form of the feminine passive participle of the verb sĕcāre. This Latin sĕcta and sequī contain the PIE root *sek^w‑ meaning ‘to follow’.

Eng. section ~ Sp. sección

There are some pairs of cognate words that are indeed derived from the passive participle (supine) stem sĕct‑ (sĕc‑t‑) of the Latin verb sĕcāre. One of them is Eng. section [ˈsɛk.ʃən] ~ Sp. sección [sek.ˈθi̯on]. These two words mean primarily ‘any of the more or less distinct parts into which something is or may be divided or from which it is made up’ (COED). They come from Latin word whose regular stem is sĕctiōn- (nom. sĕctĭo, acc. sĕctĭōnem), which is formed from the stem sĕct‑ and the noun-forming suffix ‑iōn‑. This Latin noun meant ‘a cutting, cutting off, cutting up’, among other things. It was borrowed into English directly from Latin in the late 14th century. In Spanish, it is first attested in the beginning of the 18th century and it was probably borrowed through French. From this noun, English developed the verb to section (same pronunciation as the noun) and Spanish the synonymous verb seccionar.

A pair of words related to this one are Eng. intersection ~ Sp. intersección, which are loans from Lat. intersĕctiōn‑, formed with the prefix inter ‘between’ (inter‑sĕc‑t‑iōn‑). They are derived from the stem intersĕct‑ of the passive participle of the verb intersĕcāre ‘to cut between, intersect, cut asunder’. English borrowed the noun intersection in the mid-16th century with the meaning ‘the action or fact of intersecting or crossing’, especially in geometry (OED). Two derived meanings are ‘the place where two or more things intersect’ and ‘a place where two or more roads intersect or form a junction’ (AHD), a meaning that is used primarily in North America (synonym: junction). This latter meaning can be translated into Spanish as intersección, but the main translation is cruce, a noun derived from the verb cruzar ‘to cross’ (itself derived from the noun cruz ‘cross’).

The English verb to intersect is a back-formation derived from the noun intersection in the early 17^th century. It translates into Spanish as cruzar or atravesar (in mathematics, the verb intersecar(se) has been borrowed from English with a specialized, technical meaning). English also derived a noun intersect from the verb intersect in the mid-17th century for use in geometry, with the meaning ‘point of intersection’ (OED).

Another pair of words that is related to Lat. sĕctiōn- are Eng. dissection ~ Sp. disección, which come from Lat. dissĕctiōn‑, containing the prefix dis ‘apart’, from the Latin verb dissĕcāre ‘to cut in pieces’ (dis‑sĕc‑ā‑re). By back-formation, English has derived the verb dissect [ˌdaɪ̯.ˈsɛkt] from the noun dissection. This verb means ‘methodically cut up (a body or plant) in order to study its internal parts’ and, more generally, ‘analyze in minute detail’ (COED). Spanish has also created its own equivalent diseccionar, though it is probably less common than the verbal expression hacer la/una disección ‘to do a dissection’.

	sĕc	t	iōn‑
inter	sĕc	t	iōn-
dis	sĕc	t	iōn-

Other English words that are derived or composed from the word section are:

·   vivisection: ‘the act or practice of cutting into or otherwise injuring living animals, especially for the purpose of scientific research’ (AHD); this is word created in English at the end of the 17th century from the root viv‑ of the Latin adjective vivus ‘alive’, cf. Sp. vivo/a (viv‑i‑section); originally it meant ‘dissection of a living animal’; Spanish has borrowed this word from English as vivisección, which just has the meaning ‘dissection of a living animal’

·   bisection: ‘division into two usually equal parts’ (WNTWIU); this noun was created, in English, from the verb bisect, soon after the verb bisect was created, in English, from the New Latin word bisectus formed from the learned prefix bi‑ ‘two’ and the passive participle sectus of the verb secāre. English has borrowed this noun as bisección. There is also a Spanish verb bisecar calqued from Eng. bisect that translates the mathematical sense of bisect. The non-mathematical sense translates into Spanish as dividir en dos ‘divide in two’ or dividir por la mitad ‘divide into halves’.

·   midsection: ‘a section midway between the extremes’ (MWC); this word was created in English around 1890 from the patrimonial English prefix mid‑ ‘middle or middle part of’ (WNWC), a combining form of the word middle, e.g. midday, midway, midsummer, mid-sentence, mid-July, mid-18th century; cf. Sp. sección central (Eng. mid‑ translates in different ways depending on what is next to, e.g. mid-June = mediados de junio, mid-forties = alrededor de 45 años, mid-morning = a media mañana.

·   cross-section: a compound formed in the 18th century with the adverb cross ‘crosswise’ (cf. the preposition across), probably from Old Norse kross and ultimately from Lat. crux ‘cross’ (cf. Sp. cruz, from acc. crucem); the word cross-section (or crosssection or cross section) originally was originally used in engineering sketches with the sense ‘something that has been cut in half so that you can look at the inside, or a drawing of this’ (DOCE); the sense ‘representative sample’ is from the early 20th century; Spanish translates the first sense as corte transversal and the second one as muestra representativa.

·   subsection: this word, also spelled sub-section, was created in English in the early 17th century from the Latinate prefix sub‑ ‘under’, with the meaning ‘a part of a section, especially in a legal document’ (DOCE); it translates into Spanish as artículo when speaking of a part of a legal document; but also as apartado of a regular document or subdivisión of a business, for example.

Eng. sector ~ Sp. sector

Another pair of words derived from the stem sĕct‑ of the Latin verb sĕcāre are Eng. sector [ˈsɛk.təɹ] ~ Sp. sector [sek.ˈt̪oɾ]. The Latin word sĕctor (regular stem: sĕctōr‑) originally was an agent noun derived from the passive participle stem sĕct‑ (sĕc‑t‑) of the verb sĕcāre and the agentive suffix ‑ōr‑ (sĕc‑t‑ōr‑). Thus, the meaning of this word in classical Latin was ‘cutter, one who cuts’. However, in Late Latin, this word came to mean ‘section of a circle’, as in a piece of a pizza pie. This new sense was actually a semantic calque from the equivalent Greek word τοµεύς (tomeús), derived from the root τοµ‑ (tom‑) we saw earlier, which literally meant ‘cutter’, a word that had been used by Archimedes and later geometers with the senses ‘section of a circle’, as well as ‘section of a sphere’.[2]

The cognates Eng. sector ~ Sp. sector can have this meaning in geometry, just like the Late Latin word. However, the main meanings of these cognates today are: (1) ‘a part of an area of activity, especially of business, trade, etc.’, as in the business sector (Sp. el sector de negocios), and (2) ‘one of the parts into which an area is divided, especially for military purposes’, as in the American sector of Berlin (DOCE) (Sp. sector estadounidense de Berlín).

Eng. segment  ~ Sp. segmento

Finally, there is another common set of cognates that are derived from the root sĕc‑, namely Eng. segment [ˈsɛɡ.mənt] ~ Sp. segmento [seɣ.ˈmen.t̪o]. They come from Lat. sĕgmĕntum ‘a cutting, slice, piece’, i.e. ‘a part cut off’ (sĕg‑mĕnt‑um).

Lat. sĕgmĕntum is a synonym of Lat. fragmĕntum, which has given us Eng. fragment ~ Sp. fragmento. The two words are formed with the same suffix ‑mĕnt‑(um), but the latter is derived from the verb frangĕre ‘to break’ instead of the verb sĕcāre ‘to cut’ (cf. Part II, Chapter 39, §39.2). The suffix ‑mĕnt(‑um) formed abstract nouns from verbs and sometimes also from adjectives. The morpheme sĕg‑ is an allomorph of the morpheme sĕc‑, one in which a change of ‑c‑ to ‑g‑ (voicing, cf. Part I, Chapter 7) took place at an early time in the history of Latin, presumably by the influence of the ‑m‑ in the following syllable.

English borrowed the word segment in the 16th century and it appears for the first time in Spanish in the early 18th century. Both English and Spanish have derived verbs from these nouns. In the mid-19th century, English created the verb to segment, which is pronounced with final stress: [səɡ.ˈmɛnt] (cf. Part I, Chapter 7). This verb can be either transitive or intransitive, for it means either ‘to separate or divide into segments’ (RHW), and it is used primarily in embryology. Likewise, Spanish has created the transitive verb segmentar out of the noun segmento. The intransitive version of this verb is arrived at by making the verb reflexive: segmentarse.

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[1] The DLE’s original definition in Spanish is: ‘cortar mieses o hierba con la hoz, la guadaña o cualquier máquina a propósito’.

[2] The two senses can be fleshed out thus, according to the OED: (1) ‘A plane figure contained by two radii and the arc of a circle, ellipse, or other central curve intercepted by them’ and (2) ‘a solid generated by the revolution of a plane sector about one of its radii’.

The word 'insect' and related words of cutting: Part 4

[This entry comes from Chapter 4, "The word insect and related words of cutting", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

This is Part 4. Go to Part 1

Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European root *tem in Latin

Latin also inherited words that stem from the Proto-Indo-European root *tem‑, though there are questions about some of the words that have been proposed as having that origin. One of them is the Latin verb tondēre ‘to shave, shear, clip, prune, trim, mow, etc.’ (principal parts: present tondĕo, present infinitive tondēre, perfect active totondī, supine tōnsum). This verb presumably comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *tend‑, derived from *temh₂- ‘to cut’ (tem+d).

Lat. tondēre has given us Sp. tundir ‘the shear, clip the hair of cloth or animal skins’. This is not a common word at all nowadays, since the activity is no longer common either. The form of this verb is not what we would have expected from a patrimonial word. The first vowel should have been o, not u, and normally a second conjugation Latin verb (‑ēre) became a second conjugation ‑er Spanish verb, not a third conjugation ‑ir verb. In other words, Sp. tundir should have been tonder (cf. Fr. tondre ‘to crop, shear, clip, mow’). We do not know the reason for the unexpected changes.

Sp. tundir has a second, colloquial meaning, namely ‘to beat, give a thrashing’ (the associated noun is tunda ‘a thrashing’). Although dictionaries sometimes put the two meanings of Sp. tundir under the same entry, it is quite possible that the second meaning of Sp. tundir is derived not from Lat. tondēre but from Lat. tŭndĕre, a verb that means ‘to beat, strike, thump, pulp, crush’. Perhaps confusion between the two verbs explains the unexpected form of the first verb tundir. After all, third conjugation Latin ‑ĕre verbs did become third conjugation ‑ir verbs in Spanish sometimes. On the other hand the ŭ in the first syllable should have become o in a Spanish patrimonial word such as this one, not u.[1]

As we have seen, the passive participle of tondēre was the irregular tōnsus, whose stem was tōns‑. (This irregular stem comes from an earlier tond‑+‑d‑, which resulted in fused stem tons‑, cf. Part I, Chapter 8, §8.4.3.1.3). As usual, from this stem, Latin derived other words, such as nouns. One was the zero-derived noun tōnsus which meant ‘a hairstyle, haircut’. From the stem tōns‑, Latin also derived the noun tōnsūra (tōns‑ūr‑a) with the noun-forming suffix ‑ūr‑, which meant ‘a shearing, clipping’. This noun has resulted in the cognates Eng. tonsure [ˈtʰɒn.ʃəɹ] ~ Sp. tonsura [t̪on.ˈsu.ɾa], which refer to ‘the act of shaving the head or part of the head, especially as a preliminary to becoming a priest or a member of a monastic order’, as well as ‘the part of a monk's or priest’s head that has been shaved’ (AHD).

Perhaps the most interesting word derived from the Latin stem tōns‑ is the word tijeras ‘scissors’ (Old Sp. tisera(s)). This word comes from an ellipsis of the Latin phrase (forficēs) tonsorĭas ‘shearing (scissors)’, where tonsorĭas was an adjective (‘for shearing’) modifying the noun forficēs ‘scissors’, plural form of forfex, which also meant ‘pair of shears or scissors’. As in the case of the word insectum, the noun in this phrase was lost and the adjective became a noun with the meaning of the whole. Some of the sound changes we encounter in Sp. tijeras are expected, in particular the loss of the consonant ‑n‑ before ‑s‑ (Lat. ‑ns‑ > Sp. ‑s‑, cf. Part I, Chapter 10). The change of ‑o‑ to ‑i‑, ‑s‑ to ‑j‑, and ‑o‑ to ‑e‑, on the other hand, are not regular, expected changes. The first one, is the most unusual one, for it is quite rare. The change from Lat. ‑s‑ to Sp. ‑j‑ [x] ([ʃ] in Medieval Spanish) is not regular but it is not uncommon. It is found in words such as jabón ‘soap’ (from Lat. saponem, which is also the source of Eng. soap). The ‑o‑ to ‑e‑ and ‑o‑ > ‑i‑ vowel fronting can be explained by the influence of the ‑ĭ‑ (yod) in the last syllable, which became a semi-vowel in this context. The i was probably originally also an e, which later got raised to i by the influence of the palatal consonant that followed.[2]

t	o	n	s	o	r	ĭ	a	s
t	i		j	e	r		a	s

Another Latin verb containing the Proto-Indo-European root *tem‑ was probably temnĕre, which meant ‘to despise’. There are no descendants of this verb in English or Spanish. There is one descendant, in English, of a Latin verb derived from temnĕre by prefixation. The Latin verb contemnĕre also meant ‘to scorn, despise’ (the prefix con‑ added an intensive meaning). This verb’s passive participle, contemptus ‘scorned’, was turned into a noun in Latin with the meaning ‘scorn’. This noun was borrowed into English in the late 14th century as contempt [kən.ˈtʰɛmpt]. Its meaning is ‘the feeling that someone or something is worthless or beneath consideration’ (COED). This noun translates into Spanish as desprecio or desdén. In a legal context, in means ‘the offence of being disobedient to or disrespectful of a court of law’ (COED), also known as contempt of court. The Spanish equivalent is desacato (al tribunal).

There are two other Latin words that may or may not be derived from the same root: Lat. tempus ‘time’ (regular root: tempor‑) and Lat. templum ‘temple, shrine, sacred place, open area, especially for augury’. The former is the source of Sp. tiempo and of the derived cognates Eng. temporal ~ Sp. temporal and Eng. temporary ~ Sp. temporario. The latter is the source of Sp. templo and Eng. temple ‘a building devoted to the worship of a god or gods’ (COED). Because of the meaning changes involved, it is not clear whether these words come from the PIE root *tem‑ or, else, from the PIE root *temp- ‘to stretch, string’.

The cognates Eng. contemplate ~ Sp. contemplar come ultimately from the Latin first conjugation deponent verb contemplārī ‘observe, note or notice’ or ‘to gaze at’. It is first attested in Spanish in the 15th century and in English, in the late 16th century. This verb is derived from the Latin noun templum, so to the extent that templum could possibly be derived from the root *tem‑, then so could this verb. The main meaning of both of these verbs is ‘to look at attentively and thoughtfully’ (AHD). However, Eng. contemplate has acquired two additional senses that its Spanish counterpart does not have. The first one is ‘to consider carefully and at length; meditate on or ponder’ (AHD), as in to contemplate a problem from all sides, which can be translated into Spanish as meditar sobre. The second one is ‘to have in mind as an intention or possibility’ (AHD), as in to contemplate getting married. This sense would translated into Spanish as considerar, pensar en. To the extent that Spanish speaker use the verb contemplar with these senses, they are engaging in semantic calquing (cf. Part I, cf. §1.4.2, §2.8.3.3, §4.8.2).

Derived from these verbs are the cognate adjectives Eng. contemplative ~ Sp. contemplativo/a, which are both adjectives that mean ‘disposed to or characterized by contemplation’ (AHD), usually referring to a mood or a look. Eng. contemplative can also be a noun to refer to ‘a person given to contemplation’ or ‘a member of a religious order that emphasizes meditation’ (AHD), whereas the Spanish cognate cannot be used that way. Actually, the Spanish adjectives Sp. pensativo/a and meditabundo/a are usually better translations of the English adjective contemplative than contemplativo/a is.

Go to part 5 of 5

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[1] Spanish has a learned word derived from a verb derived from Lat. tŭndĕre, namely the Latin verb contŭndĕre, which meant ‘to utterly subdue, beat to a pulp; to bruise, make sore’ (principal parts: present contundō, present infinitive contundĕre, perfect active contudī, supine contūsum). The verb is contundir ‘to bruise, contuse’. This verb is not very common, but an adjective derived from it is indeed common: contundente. It means ‘blunt’ when referring to an instrument and ‘convincing, overwhelming, weighty’ when referring to an argument, a reply, etc. Another common Spanish word derived from this verb is contusión ‘bruise, contusion’, from Lat contūsiōn‑ ‘bruise, contusion’. (Spanish contusión is much more common than its English cognate contusion.) The rare verb Eng. contuse is also derived from this verb, namely from its passive participle contūsus. The English noun contusion should not be confused with the noun concussion (‘a violent shock as from a heavy blow’ and ‘temporary unconsciousness or confusion caused by a blow on the head’, COED; Sp. conmoción cerebral), which comes from Lat. concussion‑, a noun derived from the verb concutĕre ‘to shake violently’.

[2] The word scissors in English is not related to Sp. tijeras, though it also comes from Latin. Eng. scissors (pronounced [ˈsɪz.əɹz] or [ˈsɪz.əz]) is a late 14th century loan from Old French cisoires (plural) ‘shears’, which comes from Vulgar Latin *cisoria (plural) ‘cutting instrument’, derived from the stem *cisus, ultimately from Latin caedĕre ‘to cut’ (cf. ‑cide). The sc‑ spelling came about by influence of Medieval Latin scissor ‘tailor’ (which in classical Latin meant ‘carver, cutter’), a noun derived from the stem of the passive participle verb scindre ‘to split’. Incidentally, it has been suggested that the vowel ‑i‑ in Sp. tijeras may be due to the influence of Old French cisoires, which has an i in the first syllable (cf. Corominas). As to why Vulgar Latin was cisoria and not *caesoria or, rather, *cesoria, since it was derived from the passive participle stem caes‑, it has been suggested that it was due to the influence of the word incīsus (cf. Eng. incision, Sp. inciso), passive participle of Lat. incīdĕre ‘to cut in’, derived from Lat. in + caedĕre ‘to cut; to strike, to kill’ (the ‑ae‑ to ‑i‑ change in this derived word took place in Old Latin, cf. the section on Old Latin vowel mutations in Part I, Chapter 8, §8.3.3). (This Lat. incīdĕre should not be confused with the incĭdĕre ‘to fall in’, derived from Lat. in + cadĕre ‘to fall’, which is the source of learned Sp. incidir ‘to fall into; to have an effect on’, the cognates Eng. incident ~ Sp. incidente, and the derived cognates Eng. coincide ~ Sp. coincidir and Eng. coincidence ~ Sp. coincidencia.)

The word 'insect' and related words of cutting: Part 3

[This entry comes from Chapter 4, "The word insect and related words of cutting", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

This is Part 3. Go to Part 1

Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European root *tem in Greek

As we have seen, the Proto-Indo-European root *tem‑, meaning ‘to cut’, was passed on to Greek, and it has two different allomorphs (variants) in this language: ‎‑τομ‑ (‑tom‑) of ‑τέμ‑ (‑tem‑). We have seen some of the words that have this root, including the verb τέμνειν (témnein) ‘to cut’ and the verb derived from it by prefixation ἐντέμνειν (entémnein) ‘to cut in’. A word derived from the verb τέμνειν (témnein) is the noun τόμος (tómos), which came to be primarily a noun meaning ‘slice, piece, cut’. The root of the word τόμος (tóm‑os) is also found in the New Latin word from which come Eng. tomography ~ Sp. tomografía, the name for ‘a technique for displaying a cross section through a human body or other solid object using X-rays or ultrasound’ (COED) (tom-o-graphy). This word was , coined in 1935 and has become a truly international word, having been borrowed by languages such as Russian томогра́фия (tomográfija) and Japanese トモグラフィー (tomogurafī).

We saw that the word τόμος (tómos) with the prefix ἔν‑ (én) resulted in the Greek adjective ἔντομος (én‑tom‑os) ‘cut into pieces’. With a different prefix, negative prefix ἀ- (a-) ‘not’, we get the adjective ἄτομος (á‑tom‑os) ‘uncut, indivisible’. The neuter form of this adjective was ἄτομον (átomon), which could be used as a noun in Greek meaning ‘indivisible part’. From this word come Eng. atom [ˈæ.ɾəm] ~ Sp. átomo [ˈa.t̪o.mo]. Actually, these cognates do not come directly from Greek, but through Latin for the adjective ἄτομος was borrowed into Latin as atŏmus, which could be either an adjective meaning ‘indivisible’ or a noun meaning ‘atom’ or ‘particle incapable of being divided’, as used in Greek philosophy. The word ἄτομον (átomon) was used by Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus (Gk. Δημόκριτος, Dēmókritos) to refer to indivisible parts of nature in his philosophy. The term was revived in the early 19th century when scientists came to the realization that nature is indeed composed of atoms. A modern atom is ‘the smallest particle of a chemical element, consisting of a positively charged nucleus (containing protons and typically also neutrons) surrounded by negatively charged electrons’ (COED).

In addition to meaning ‘section’, Greek τόμος (tómos) also came to mean ‘roll of papyrus’, perhaps because of it being a section of a larger written work. This word was borrowed into Latin as tŏmus meaning ‘a cut, a piece’, as well as ‘a roll of paper’ and, eventually, ‘a part, book, tome of a larger written work’. This Latin word was borrowed into English and Spanish with that last meaning, ‘one of the books in a work of several volumes’ (AHD), giving us Eng. tome (early 16^th century) ~ Sp. tomo. The meaning of Eng. tome has diverged somewhat from its original meaning since it has come to mean ‘a book, especially a large, scholarly one’ (COED) or ‘a large heavy book’ (DOCE) and this word is used mostly humorously. On the other hand, Sp. tomo still has the original meaning of ‘volume of a large written work’, as in La Enciclopedia Británica consta de veinte tomos ‘The Encyclopædia Britannica contains twenty volumes’. Thus, these two words, although obviously historically related (cognates) and related in meaning, cannot be said to be good friends.

Another pair of words that contain this Greek root ‎‑τομ‑ (‑tom‑) are Eng. epitome [ə.ˈpʰɪ.ɾə.mi] ~ Sp. epítome [e.ˈpi.t̪o.me]. These words come from Latin (nominative) ĕpĭtŏmē or ĕpĭtŏma, meaning ‘an abridgement, summary’, a loanword from Ancient Greek ἐπιτομή (epitomḗ), with the same meaning. Originally, this Greek word meant ‘surface-incision’ since it is derived from the verb ἐπῐτέμνειν ‘to cut upon the surface, make an incision’ and, from there, ‘to cut short, abridge’. This verb was formed from the same basic verb τέμνειν (témnein) ‘to cut, separate, etc.’, with the added prefix ἐπί (epí) ‘upon’.

Eng. epitome [ə.ˈpʰɪ.ɾə.mi] ~ Sp. epítome [e.ˈpi.t̪o.me] are rather fancy words and they are also not very good friends. Eng. epitome can still mean ‘a summary of a written work’ (COED), but that meaning is quite rare. Its main meaning of Eng. epitome is ‘a representative or example of a class or type’ (COED), as in Roses are the epitome of romance. Sp. epítome, on the other hand, does not have this derived, primary meaning that Eng. epitome has. Besides ‘summary’, a rare meaning for the word, the other major meaning of Sp. epitome is the name of a rhetorical figure of speech which consists of repeating the first words of a long series of words to add clarity to what has been said. Thus, this is another pair of words that are barely good friends nowadays, despite their common origin and despite sharing a sense, ‘summary or abridgement’, one that is very minor in both languages.

The cognates Eng. anatomy ~ Sp. anatomía refer nowadays to ‘the branch of biology and medicine concerned with bodily structure, especially as revealed by dissection’ and, derived from that sense, to ‘the bodily structure of an organism’ (COED). These words are loanwords from Late Latin anatomia, which is itself a loanword from an unattested Ancient Greek *ἀνατομία (anatomía). This Greek word itself is derived, by means of the suffix ‑ία (‑ia), that created abstract nouns, from the noun ἀνατομή (anatomḗ), that meant ‘dissection’. This noun was derived from the root of the verb τέμνειν (témnein) ‘to cut, etc.’ with the prefix ἀνά (aná) ‘up’ (cf. Eng. to cut up).

The cognate nouns Eng. dichotomy [daɪ̯.ˈkɒ.ɾə.mi] ~ Sp. dicotomía [d̪i.ko.t̪o.ˈmi.a] also ultimately contain the Greek root ‑tom‑. The meaning of these words is ‘a division or contrast between two things that are opposed or entirely different’ (COED). These two words were borrowed directly from Ancient Greek διχοτοµία (dikh‑o‑tom‑ía) ‘a cutting in two, in half; a division in two parts’. This noun is derived from the adjective δῐχότομος (dikhótomos) ‘cut in half, equally divided’, formed from  The word was borrowed by English in the early 17th century, around the year 1600. Sp. dicotomía is first attested in the early 18th century.

The second part of this word, ‑tomia, is the same as that of the word anatomia that we just saw. The first part comes from the root of διχῆ (dikh‑ê) ‘in two, apart, asunder’. The Greek noun διχοτοµία (dikhotomía) is derived from the attested adjective διχότοµος (dikhótomos) ‘halved, cut in half’. From this adjective come the cognate adjectives Eng. dichotomous ~ Sp. dicótomo/a, which mean ‘divided or dividing into two parts’ or ‘of or pertaining to dichotomy’ (RHWU). They are not as common as the noun that they derive from.

Finally, the cognate suffixoids Eng. ‑tomy (‑tom-y) ~ Sp. ‑tomía (‑tom-ía) have been adopted in medicine, combined with names of body parts, to express ‘cutting, incision’, especially as part of surgery into such body parts. This type of borrowed ending is known as a suffixoid (Sp. sufijoide), that is, ‘a word-final segment that has characteristics of both a free morpheme and a bound morpheme’ (WP) (cf. Part I, Chapter 5, §5.11). Let us look at five of the most common or easily recognizable terms created with the suffixoid ‑tomy.

Eng. lobotomy [lə.ˈbɒ.ɾə.mi] ~ Sp. lobotomía [lo.βo.t̪o.ˈmi.a] mean  ‘surgical severance of nerve fibers connecting the frontal lobes to the thalamus performed especially formerly for the relief of some mental disorders’ (MWC). These words come from New Latin lobotomia (lob‑o‑tom‑ia, where ‑o‑ is the typical Greek linking vowel) This word is derived from the root lob‑ of the English word lobe, equivalent to Sp. lóbulo, which is  ‘a major division of an organ such as the brain, typically rounded in form’ (COED). Eng. lobe can also mean ‘a hanging or projecting part, such as the soft part at the base of the outer ear’ (COED), as in earlobe, Sp. lóbulo de la oreja. Eng. lobe is ultimately a borrowing from Late Latin lobus ‘hull, husk, pod’, from Greek λοβός  (lobós), which meant both ‘ear lobe’ and ‘vegetable pod’. Sp. lóbulo, the equivalent of Eng. lobe, with the same two meanings, is a loanword from a Latin diminutive form of lobus, namely lobŭlus (lob-ŭl-us). Sp. lobotomía is a loanword from Eng. lobotomy, or else the Spanish word would have been *lolubotomía.

Eng. laparotomy [ˌlæ.pə.ˈɹɒ.ɾə.mi] ~ Sp. laparotomía [la.pa.ɾo.t̪o.ˈmi.a] refers to ‘a surgical incision into the abdominal cavity, for diagnosis or in preparation for major surgery’, COED). It is derived from the Greek word λαπάρα (lapára) ‘flank’, formed with the root lapar‑ and the linking vowel ‑o‑ (lapar‑o‑tomy). There are other words that contain the prefixoid lapar‑ in English and Spanish, with the meaning ‘abdominal (wall)’, such as Eng. laparoscope [ˈlæ.pə.ɹə.ˌskoʊ̯p] ~ Sp. laparoscopio, ‘an instrument used for examining the abdomen’ (SOED).

Eng. lithotomy [lɪ.ˈθɒ.ɾə.mi] ~ Sp. litotomía [li.t̪o.t̪o.ˈmi.a]: ‘surgical removal of a calculus (stone) from the bladder, kidney, or urinary tract’ (COED). The root of this word is lith‑, which comes from New Latin lithos, a borrowing from Ancient Greek λῐ́θος (líthos) ‘stone’. In both English and Spanish, the stem Eng. lith‑o‑ ~ Sp. lit-o‑ is used in technical terms with the meaning ‘stone’. Other examples of the use of this root are the following: Eng. lithosphere (1881) ~ Sp. litosfera, which in geology refers to ‘the rigid outer part of the earth, consisting of the crust and upper mantle’ (COED); Eng. lithophagous ~ Sp. litófago ‘stone eating’, said for instance of some mollusks; Eng. lithograph [ˈlɪ.θə.ɡɹæf] ~ Sp. litografía, ‘a print produced by lithography’, that is, by ‘the process of printing from a flat metal (formerly stone) surface treated so as to repel the ink except where it is required for printing’ (COED).

The cognates Eng. phlebotomy ~ Sp. flebotomía are fancy words  for bloodletting, since it literally means ‘vein cutting’. That is, these words refer to  ‘the surgical opening or puncture of a vein to withdraw blood or introduce a fluid’ (COED). These words come from Late Lat. phlebotomia, whose first part comes from the regular (combining) root ϕλεβ‑ (phleb‑) of Ancient Greek φλέψ (phléps) ‘vein’. This prefixoid Eng. phleb‑ ~ Sp. fleb‑ is also found in other cognate medical terms, such as Eng. phlebitis~ Sp. flebitis, ‘inflammation of the walls of a vein’ (COED). The popular word for medical bloodletting in Spanish is sangría, a word derived from the noun sangre ‘blood’. The Spanish word sangría also came to be used for ‘an iced drink, typically made with red wine, sugar, fruit juice, soda water, and spices, and containing fruit slices’ (RHWU), and this word was borrowed into English in the early 1960s.

The cognates Eng. tracheotomy ~ Sp. traqueotomía refer to ‘an incision in the windpipe made to relieve an obstruction to breathing’ (COED). The first part of these words is related to the cognates  Eng. trachea [ˈtʰɹeɪ̯.ki.ə] or [trə.ˈki.ə] ~ Sp. tráquea [ˈtɾa.ke.a], meaning ‘windpipe’. Both of these words come from Medieval Medical Latin trāchēa (1255), from Late Latin trāchīa (c. 400), from Ancient Greek τρᾱχεῖα (tracheía), feminine form of the adjective τρᾱχύς (trachýs) ‘rough’. That is because this word was the product of an ellipsis of the Ancient Greek phrase ἀρτηρία τρᾱχεῖα (artēríā tracheía) ‘rough artery’, which was the name given to the windpipe.

There is an expanded version of the suffixoid ‑tomy, namely ‑ectomy, which contains the morpheme ‑εκ‑ (‑ec‑) ‘out’. In other words, whereas ‑tomy stands for ‘cutting’, ‑ectomy stands for ‘cutting out’ or ‘removing by cutting’. There are at least three pairs of fairly common cognates that contain this suffixoid.

Eng. vasectomy [və.ˈsɛk.tə.mi] ~ Sp. vasectomía [ba.sek.t̪o.ˈmi.a] refer to the ‘surgical removal of all or part of the vas deferens [the main duct through which semen is carried from the epididymis to the ejaculatory duct], usually as a means of sterilization’ (AHD). The Latin term vas deferens is used in English anatomy for this duct. The Latin phrase is also used sometimes in English, though it has been Hispanicized to vaso deferente or even better, conducto deferente, since the regular Spanish word vaso ‘drinking glass’ has a different meaning and comes from a different source. The New Latin phrase vās dēferēns is formed from Lat. vās ‘duct’ and dēferēns ‘that carries away’, present participle of the verb dēferre ‘to carry away’, formed from dē- ‘(away) from’ +and ferre ‘to bear, carry; to suffer’. The prefixoid vas‑o‑ is found in other technical medical terms such as vasoconstriction ~ Sp. vasoconstricción ‘the constriction of blood vessels, which increases blood pressure’ (COED). The cognate adjectives Eng. vascular [ˈvæ.skjʊ.ləɹ] ~ Sp. vascular [bas.ku.ˈlaɾ] come from New Latin vāscŭlāris, an adjective derived from Lat. vāscŭlum, the diminutive form of vās ‘duct’.

Eng. appendicectomy [ˌæp.ən.dɪ.'sɛk.tə.mi] or appendectomy [ˌæp.ən.ˈdɛk.tə.mi] ~ Sp. apendicectomía [a.pen.di.θek.t̪o.ˈmi.a] or apendectomía [a.pen.dek.t̪o.ˈmi.a]. These words refer to the ‘a surgical operation to remove the appendix’ (COED). The appendix, also known as vermiform appendix, is ‘a tube-shaped sac attached to the lower end of the large intestine’ (COED). These words are hybrids of the word appendix (Sp. apéndice) and the suffixoid -ectomy (Sp. ‑ectomía). The cognates Eng. appendix ~ Sp. apéndice are loanwords from Lat. nominative appendix, accusative appendĭcem, meaning ‘that which hangs to any thing, an appendage’ (L&S). This noun is derived from the verb appendĕre ‘to hang something upon something, to suspend’, a verb derived by the prefixation of the prefix ad‑ ‘to’ to the verb pendĕre ‘to hang’ (cf. Sp. pender ‘to hang’, synonym of colgar) (cf. Eng. pend and especially pending and append). By the way, of the two options for each language, the shorter version of the name, appendectomy, is more common in English and the longer one, apendicectomía, is more common in Spanish.

Eng. cholecystectomy [ˈkɒ.lə.sɪs.ˈtʰɛk.tə.mi]~ Sp. colecistectomía refer to the ‘surgical removal of the gall bladder’ These words are formed from each language’s versions of the New Latin word cholecystis ‘gallbladder’ (Sp. vesícula). Eng. cholecyst [ˈkɒ.lə.sɪst] and Sp. colecisto are fancy words in these languages for this ‘membranous muscular sac in which bile from the liver is stored’ (COED). They were borrowed in the mid-19th century from a badly formed, New Latin cholecystis, created from the Greek words χολή (khole) ‘gall’ and κύστις (kystis) ‘bladder, cyst’.

In addition to Eng. cholecystectomy ~ Sp. colecistectomía, there are also related words without the ‑ec‑ part, namely Eng. cholecystotomy [ˈkɒ.lə.sɪs.ˈtʰɒ.ɾə.mi] ~ Sp. colecistotomía or colecistomía. They refer to the opening of the gall-bladder for the purpose of removing gall-stones. In recent times, this surgical procedure is performed by means of a laparoscope (see above), ‘a fibre-optic instrument is inserted through the abdominal wall to view the organs in the abdomen or permit small-scale surgery’ (COED) and, thus, the operation tends to go by the name laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

In some cases, both options are possible, with and without the ‑ec‑ part, without there being any change in the meaning. For example, the term Eng. ovariotomy can be ‘surgical incision into an ovary, as to perform a biopsy or remove a tumor’ (AHD), but it can also be a synonym of ovariectomy ‘surgical removal of one or both ovaries’ (COED), also known as oophorectomy. In Spanish too, ovariotomía is sometimes used as a synonym for ovariectomía.

Go to part 4.