Eng. -age ~ Sp. -aje, Part 16: English words in -age (a)

[This entry is an excerpt from Chapter 18, "Eng. language and Sp. lenguaje: words ending in Eng. -age and Sp. -aje", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

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English words in -age

In this section we are going to take a look at English words that have the suffix ‑age, most of which do not come from Latin ‑ātĭcum words, but rather were derived in French or English from the suffix ‑age that came from the Latin suffix ‑ātĭcum, by analogy with existing Latin words, such as those we saw in the previous section (§18.3). There are around 400 words that end in ‑age in an English dictionary, though not all of them contain this suffix, as we shall see.

As we have already seen, not all English ‑age words have equivalent ‑aje words in Spanish, and vice versa. There are several reasons for this. Since many of these words come from French —either Northern French dialects or southern ones—not all of these French words were borrowed by English and Spanish, and the borrowed ones were not always the same. Secondly, English and Spanish—but mostly English—created new words out of this borrowed suffix, words which did not make it to the other language. For instance, English created the word spillage out of the verb spill, and Spanish does not have a cognate of this word. These words also happen to be the most semantically transparent ones for an English speaker since they are derived from existing English words, such as spill in this case, whereas the words with the suffix ‑age that were borrowed from French are typically semantically opaque, e.g. garage. Spanish has also created a few words with this suffix, but these coinages are much fewer in number than the English ones.

English words that contain the suffix ‑age are typically stressed on the penultimate syllable, that is, on the syllable before the suffix, which means that the suffix is pronounced (unstressed) [ɪʤ], such as advantage [əd.ˈvæn.(t)ɪʤ], a French loan, and blockage [ˈblɒ.kɪʤ], an English coinage. However, words with this suffix that were borrowed from French in the last couple of centuries, such as massage, tend to have the stress on the final syllable, that is, on the suffix, just like they do in Modern French. In these words, the suffix is pronounced [ˈɑʒ], just like in French, or in a more Anglicized way, as [ˈɑʤ], if the words have become common enough, e.g. massage can be pronounced either [mə.ˈsɑʒ] or [mə.ˈsɑʤ]. (The French words end in [ˈɑʒ], with the alveopalatal fricative sound [ʒ] at the end, but this sound only occurs in the middle of a word in native English words and the closest sound that English has at the end of words is the alveopalatal affricate [ʤ].) Other such recent loans are the following:

• menage [məˈnɑʒ] or [məˈnɑʤ],
• mirage [məˈɹɑʒ]
• barrage [bəˈɹɑʒ] or [bəˈɹɑʤ]
• montage [mɑn.ˈtʰɑʒ] (also pronounced [ˈmɒn.tɑʒ] in Britain, with initial stress)

Spanish words in ‑aje, however, are always stressed on the penultimate syllable of this ending (which has two syllables, unlike the English cognate) and the ending is always pronounced [ˈa.xe]. This is also the case in the same recent borrowings from French such as masaje [ma.ˈsa.xe] and montaje [mon.ˈt̪a.xe].

The status of ‑age as a suffix of English is a somewhat peculiar one. It would seem that English speakers have to some extent recognized and treated ‑age as an actual suffix of the language, even though in most cases the suffix ‑age came attached to French words without a recognizable base, as in the case of garage (cf. §18.3 above). This English suffix is not very productive, as was to be expected, but it has been more productive than could have been expected since English has produced a number of new ‑age words by analogy, such as spillage from spill, leakage from leak, shrinkage from shrink, breakage from break, cleavage from cleave, postage from post, wreckage from wreck, and so on. As we said earlier, these words do not by and large have corresponding (cognate) words in ‑aje in Spanish.

Most of the words minted in English with the suffix ‑age are fairly recent creations, but there are some old ones, such as the word bondage, which is based on the Middle English native or patrimonial (Germanic) word bond ‘serf, tenant farmer’, which comes from Old English bonda where it just meant ‘householder, husband, head of a family’ (Eng. bondage = Sp. esclavitud, servidumbre). This English word was rendered into Anglo-Latin, that is, the Latin used in England in the Middle Ages in legal documents of England, as bondagium, for the reason we explained earlier, namely that Old French (and in this case Middle English) words with the suffix ‑age were Latinized with the suffix ‑agium in Medieval Latin times (cf. §18.2).

Because of what was just said, it should not surprise us that that some words that actually ended in ‑agium (and occasionally ‑agia) in Classical Latin end up with the ending ‑age in French, and therefore in English as well. Thus, for instance, Eng. suffrage comes from Medieval Latin suffragium ‘voting tablet, (cf. Sp. sufragio). Do note that ‑agium was not a suffix in Latin. The word suffragium contained a stem that happened to end in the letters ag (suffrag‑) plus the suffix ‑ĭ‑um which was used to form abstract nouns and sometimes nouns denoting offices and groups. Occasionally, the ending ‑age in an English word corresponds to the ending (not suffix) ‑agia in Latin. Thus, Eng. hemorrhage comes from Lat. haemorrhagia (cf. Sp. hemorragia), a loanword from Ancient Greek αἱμορραγία (haimorrhagía) ‘violent bleeding’.

Thus, there are English words that end in ‑age that never had a suffix ‑age that came from Lat. ‑ātĭcum. Some are words that in are related to Latin words that had the Latin suffix ‑agium or ‑agia, as we just saw. Others come from Latin words ending in ‑agin‑em, accusative form of ‑ag‑o, which was also not a real suffix. Yet other English words end up in these sounds and letters by mere chance. The most common English words that end in ‑age that did not contain the suffix ‑age in their etymology are the following:

• adage (Sp. adagio): < Lat. ădăgĭum ‘proverb’ ?< ad ‘to’ + *ag‑ (old stem of aiĕre ‘to say’) + ‑ĭ‑um
• average (Sp. n. promedio, media; adj. corriente): formed in English, of uncertain origin, perhaps ultimately from the French avarie or Italian avaria ‘damage to ship’, which probably comes from Arabic عَوَارِيَّة‎ (ʿawāriyya) ‘damaged goods’ (cf. Sp. avería ‘breakdown’)
• cabbage (Sp. repollo, col) < Mid.Eng. caboge < Old Fr. caboce, dimin. of Lat. caput ‘head’
• cartilage (Sp. cartílago): < Lat. cartilaginem, accusative form of Lat. cartilago
• carnage (Sp. carnicería, matanza): < Mid. Fr. carnage < Old Italian carnaggio ‘slaughter, murder’ < Lat. carnaticum ‘slaughter of animals’
• hemorrhage (Sp. hemorragia): < (earlier) hemorrhagy < Lat. haemorrhagia (Pliny) < Gk. αἱμορραγία (haimorrhagía) ‘a violent bleeding’
• image (Sp. imagen): < Lat. imāgĭnem, accusative of imāgō ‘an imitation, copy, image, representation, likeness’
• mortgage (Sp. hipoteca): < O.Fr. morgage (or mort gage or gage mort) ‘dead pledge’ < post-classical Latin mortuum vadium ‘dead pledge’[1]
• sausage [ˈsɒsɪʤ], [ˈsɔsɪʤ], or [ˈsɑsɪʤ] (Sp. salchicha): < Old Fr. saussiche < Vulgar Latin *salsīcia ‘sausage’, neuter plural of salsīcius ‘prepared by salting’ < salsus ‘salted’ < sāl ‘salt’ (acc. salem)
• scrimmage (Sp. escaramuza, refriega): a variant of skirmish with ‘suffix substitution’ (OED)
• suffrage (Sp. sufragio): Old Fr. sofrage ‘plea, intercession’ < Medieval Latin suffragium < Latin suffrāgium ‘right to vote, etc.’
• vintage (cf. Sp. vendimia) ‘the year or place in which wine, especially wine of high quality, was produced’ (COED): < Anglo-Norman vindage/vendage < Old French vendange < Lat. vĭndēmia (by suffix substitution?)

Strictly speaking and from an etymological perspective, these words cannot be said to contain the suffix ‑age, since their ‑age ending does not come from Latin ‑ātĭcum or its descendants. However, nothing stops native speakers of English, who by and large do not know anything about etymology, from making a connection among all the words that end in ‑age somehow.

Some English words end in a stressed age, pronounced [ˈeɪ̯ʤ], such as engage and enrage, which never contained the suffix ‑age either. Eng. engage comes from  the Old French verb engagier ‘to pledge, etc.’, which comes from the same noun gage ‘pledge’ we saw is found in the word mortgage. The verb enrage comes from Old French enragier ‘go wild, etc.’ and it is derived from the noun rage or raige ‘rabies, rage’ that comes from Medieval Latin rabia, from Latin rabies ‘madness, rage, fury’ (cf. Sp. rabia ‘rabies; rage, fury, anger’.

The verb manage [ˈmæ.nɪʤ] does not have final stress, but it does not contain the suffix ‑age either. This verb as well as its Spanish cognate manejar ‘to handle’ both seem to come from Italian maneggiare ‘to handle’, originally used in equestrian vocabulary (first attested c. 1300 for English and c. 1600 for Spanish). (The root of this Italian verb contains the root man‑ that means ‘hand’ (cf. Sp. mano ‘hand’.) For some words ending in age, their origin is lost in time, such as the words garbage and rampage, whose origins are disputed (the noun rampage comes from the verb rampage, but the verb’s origin is uncertain).

Some English words that end in age are verbs that were derived from a noun with the suffix ‑age. One example is the word discourage, which is related to the noun courage (Eng. discourage = Sp. desanimar, desalentar, disuadir, etc.). Actually, Eng. discourage is a loanword from Old French descoragier, which is derived from the noun corage, source of Eng. courage. Analogous is the case of the noun disparage, which comes from Old French desparagier (Modern French déparager), which is derived from the French noun parage ‘rank, lineage’, which was borrowed into English too but is quite rare today, which is derived from the noun par ‘equal’, which is a cognate of Eng. pair and peer and of Sp. par. Another such verb is Eng. envisage (Sp. imaginarse, concebir; prever), which comes from French envisager, which is derived from Fr. visage ‘face’. (The noun visage has been borrowed into English, but it is quite rare.)

Below we are going to see a fairly exhaustive list of the most common English words that when created contained the suffix ‑age, either in English or in French, or which descend from a word with the suffix ‑ātĭcum in the Latin language. In that list we do not include extremely rare words, some of which may be archaic or obsolete, such as the following ones:

• agiotage: ‘the business of dealing in foreign exchange’ (RHWU)
• alienage: ‘The official status of an alien’ (AHD)
• decoupage: ‘the decoration of the surface of an object with paper cut-outs’ (COED)
• equipage: archaic ‘the equipment for a particular purpose’; historical ‘a carriage and horses with attendants’ (OAD)
• meltage: ‘the amount melted or the result of melting’ (RHWU)
• primage: ‘a small allowance formerly paid by a shipper to the master and crew of a vessel for the loading and care of the goods’ (RHWU)

Also not included on the long list below are fairly rare and fancy words that probably only very learned speakers would recognize, such as the following:

• décolletage: ‘the neckline or top of a dress cut low so as to bare the neck and shoulders’ (WNWC)
• maquillage: ‘cosmetic or theatrical makeup’ (AHD)
• parentage: ‘someone’s parents and the country and social class they are from’ (DOCE)
• pupilage: ‘the state or period of being a pupil’ (AHD)
• reportage: ‘the reporting of news by the press and the broadcasting media’ (COED)
• tillage: ‘cultivation of land’; ‘land that has been tilled’ (AHD)
• tutorage: ‘the function or work of a tutor’ (MWC); and
• visage: ‘literary a person's face, with reference to the form of the features’ (COED)

The following are the words that most speakers of English would recognize, though some are more common than others. The Spanish cognate is provided when there is one and its most common Spanish equivalent is given otherwise. (Where it says + ‑age in the description, it means the word was created in English out of the base word. Where the source is French, this source is given and sometimes the ultimate source of the base word is given as well.)

• triage: Sp. selección de prioridades; < O.Fr. triage < trier ‘to pick, cull’
• tutelage: Sp. tutela; < Lat. tūtēla ‘watching, keeping, guardianship’ + ‑age
• acreage: Sp. superficie en acres; < acre + ‑age
• advantage: Sp. ventaja; < O. Fr. avantage ‘advantage, profit, superiority’, < avant ‘before’
• amperage: Sp. amperaje; < ampere +‑age
• anchorage: Sp. anclaje (charge or fastening); < anchor + ‑age
• appendage: Sp. apéndice, añadidura; < append + ‑age
• arbitrage: Sp. arbitraje; < O.Fr. arbitrage ‘arbitration, judgement’ < arbitrer ‘to judge’
• baggage: Sp. equipaje, bagaje; O. Fr. bagage ‘property packed up for carriage’ < baguer ‘to tie up, bind’
• bandage: Sp. venda, vendaje; < Mid. Fr. bandage < O.Fr. bander ‘to bind’ < bande ‘a strip’
• beverage: Sp. brebaje ‘potion’ (Sp. bebida) < O.Fr. bevrage < O.Fr. boivre ‘to drink’ (cf. Sp. beber)
• blockage: Sp. obstrucción, atasco, (med) oclusión; < block + ‑age
• breakage: Sp. rotura; < break + ‑age
• bricolage: ~ Sp. bricolaje; < bricolage ‘do-it-yourself’ < bricoler ‘do odd jobs, repair’
• brokerage: cf. Sp. corretaje, correduría; < broker + ‑age
• camouflage: ~ Sp. camuflaje; < Fr. camouflage < camoufler ‘to disguise, hide’ (cf. Sp. camuflar)
• carriage: ~ Sp. carruaje (< Cat. carruatge < O.Cat. carriatge): Old N. Fr. cariage < carier ‘to carry (in a cart, etc.)’ < Latin carrus ‘four-wheeled baggage wagon’ (cf. Sp. carro ‘cart’)
• cleavage: Sp. escote; division; < cleave + ‑age
• coinage: Sp. monedas (etc.): < Old Fr. coignage < coignier < Old Fr. coin < Lat. cuneus (~ Sp. cuña ‘wedge, groove’)
• collage: ~ Sp. collage [ko.ˈlaʃ], colaje: < coller ‘to stick, glue’ < Gk. κόλλα (kólla) ‘glue’ (cf. Sp. cola ‘glue’; cf. Eng. collate)
• cottage: Sp. casa de campo: < O.Fr. cote ‘hut’ + ‑age
• courage: ~ Sp. coraje: < O.Fr. corage (Mod.Fr. courage) < V.Lat. *coraticum (see above)
• coverage: Sp. cobertura: < cover + ‑age
• damage: Sp. daño, perjuicio: < O.Fr. damage ‘loss caused by injury’ (Mod.Fr. dommage) < dam ‘dammage’ < Lat. damnum ‘loss, hurt, damage’ (cf. Sp. daño)
• disadvantage: ~ Sp. desventaja: < O.Fr. desavantage < des‑ (=dis‑) + avantage (cf. Eng. advantage)
• dosage ‘the amount of a medicine or drug that you should take at one time, especially regularly’ (DOCE): Sp. dosis; posología: dose + ‑age (= Fr. dosage)
• drainage: ~ Sp. drenaje (< Eng.), desagüe; < drain + ‑age (= Fr. drainage < Eng.)
• espionage ‘spying’: ~ Sp. espionaje: < Fr. espionnage < espionner ‘to spy’ < espion ‘spy’
• foliage: ~ Sp. follaje: < O.Fr. feuillage (earlier fueillage, foillage ) < feuille ‘leaf’
• (film) footage: cf. Sp. filmación, metraje; < foot + ‑age
• (square) footage: Sp. area en pies cuadrados; < foot + ‑age
• forage: ~ Sp. forraje; O.Fr. forrage < feurre ‘fodder, straw’ < Frankish *fōdar
• fuselage: ~ Sp. fuselaje; < Fre. fuselage < fuselé ‘spindle-shaped’ < O.Fr. *fus ‘spindle’ (cf. Sp. huso) < Lat. fusus ‘spindle’
• garage: ~ Sp. garaje: < Fr. garage ‘shelter’ < garer ‘to shelter’ < Frankish *waron ‘to guard’
• heritage: Sp. herencia, patrimonio; < O.Fr. heritage < heriter ‘inherit’
• homage: Sp. homenaje; < O.Fr. homage (Modern French hommage) < homme ‘man’ < Lat. hominem (accusative of homo; cf. Sp. hombre)
• hostage: Sp. rehén; < O.Fr. hostage < V.Lat. *obstāticum < *obsidāticum < Lat. obses, obsidem ‘hostage’
• language: Sp. lenguaje; < O.Fr. language ??< V.Lat. *linguāticum
• leakage: Sp. escape, fuga; < leak + ‑age
• leverage: Sp. acción de palanca, etc.; < lever + ‑age
• lineage: Sp. linaje; < O.Fr. lignage ‘descent, etc.’ < ligne ‘line’ < Lat. linea ‘string, line’
• linkage: Sp. conexión, enlace, etc.; < link + ‑age
• luggage: Sp. equipaje; < lug + ‑age
• marriage (= Sp. matrimonio, etc.): ~ Sp. maridaje ‘close cooperation; obsolete married life’; < O.Fr. mariage ‘marriage; dowry’ < V Lat. *maritaticum
• massage: Sp. masaje; < French massage ‘friction of kneading’ < masser ‘to massage’
• ménage ‘a group of people living together in the same house ‘ (CALD): Sp. cohabitantes, convivientes, etc.; cf. Sp. menaje (false friend): < French ménage ‘couple, household’ < O.Fr. manage ‘household, family dwelling’ < V.Lat. *mansionaticum ‘household’, from Lat. mansĭōnem (nominative: mansĭo) ‘a staying, remaining, stay, continuance’ and, derived from it, ‘a place of abode, a dwelling, habitation’, from the stem māns‑ of the passive participle mānsum of the verb manēre ‘to stay, remain; spend the night; etc’; cf. Eng. mansion ~ Sp. mansion; Sp. (artículos de) menaje ‘household goods’, in particular menaje de cocina ‘kitchenware’; (in a department store) sección de menaje del hogar ‘household department’; In English, the French phrase ménage à trois ‘threesome sexual relationship’ (lit. ‘household of three’) has become quite well known
• message: Sp. mensaje; < O.Fr. message ‘message, communication, news’ < Med. Lat. missaticum < Lat. missus, p.p. of mittĕre ‘to send’
• mileage: Sp. kilómetros, kilometraje; < mile + ‑age
• mirage [məˈɹɑʒ]: Sp. espejismo; < Fr. mirer ‘to be reflected’
• miscarriage: Sp. aborto (espontáneo): < miscarry + ‑age
• montage [ˌmɒn.ˈtɑʒ]: Sp. montaje: <  Fr. montage ‘assembling; ascending’ < O.Fr. monter ‘to go up, mount; to assemble’
• orphanage: Sp. orfanato; < orphan + ‑age
• outage: Sp. apagón, corte de luz; < out + ‑age
• outrage [ˈaʊ̯t.ˌɹeɪ̯ʤ] (pronunciation influenced by unrelated rage): Sp. ultraje; < O.Fr. ultrage, oltrage, outrage ‘transgression (in word or deed)’ < ultre, outre ‘beyond’
• package: Sp. paquete; < (v.) pack + ‑age
• passage: Sp. pasaje; < O.Fr. passage ‘way through; mountain pass; action of passing; part of a text; ferry-toll; crossing, ford, ferry, expedition overseas; etc.’ < post-classical Latin passaticum (and passa(t)gium) < passāre ‘to pass’ / < passus ‘pace’
• patronage: Sp. patrocinio, etc.; < Middle French patronage ‘patron’s protection of a client’ < patron ‘patron, protector’+ ‑age (cf. post-classical Latin patronagium; cf. Sp. patronazgo)
• percentage: Sp. porcentaje: < per cent + ‑age
• pilgrimage: Sp. peregrinaje: < O.Fr. pelerinage < pelerin ‘pilgrim’ + ‑age (cf. Sp. peregrino)
• pillage: Sp. pillaje, saqueo: Mid.Fr. pillage ‘booty; action of sacking’ < piller ‘to manhandle, seize by violence, etc.’ + ‑age < V.Lat. piliare ‘to plunder, etc.’, probably from compīlāre or (less common pīlāre) ‘to plunder, pillage, rob’, from pĭlus ‘hair’ (cf. It. pigliare, Sp. pillar; cf. post-classical Lat. pilagium ‘robbery, plundering’)
• plumage: Sp. plumaje: < O.Fr. plumage < plume ‘feather’ + ‑age
• postage: Sp. franqueo: < (n.) post + ‑age
• ravage: Sp. saqueo, estragos, etc.: < Fr. ravage ‘damage caused by violent action’ < ravir ‘to abduct [a person]; to steal [goods]’ (< Lat. răpĕre ‘snatch, grab, carry off, abduct’)
• roughage: Sp. fibra: < (adj.) rough + ‑age
• rummage: Sp. búsqueda desordenada, etc.: < Middle French arrumage ‘arranging or rearranging of cargo in the hold of a ship’ < arrumer < Middle Dutch rūmen, ruymen (cf. post-classical Latin roumagium); more common is the derived verb to rummage (Sp. revolver buscando, hurgar, rebuscar, buscar desordenadamente)
• sabotage: Sp. sabotaje: < Fr. saboter ‘to make a noise with sabots, walk noisily; to bungle something’ < sabot ‘wooden shoe’
• sewage: Sp. aguas residuales/negras; < sew(er) + ‑age (actually, there was much earlier a verb sew in English that meant ‘to drain, draw off water’, now dialectal, but this verb was apparently not in use when the word sewage was concocted
• sewerage (‘the provision of drainage by sewers’, COED): Sp. alcantarillado, cloacas; < sewer + ‑age (in the US sewerage has been used as a synonym of sewage too)
• shortage: Sp. falta, escasez, carestía, insuficiencia; < short + ‑age
• shrinkage: Sp. encogimiento; < shrink + ‑age
• slippage: Sp. caída, corrimiento, etc.; < slip + ‑age
• spillage: Sp. derrame; < spill + ‑age
• spoilage: Sp. estropeo; consentimiento; etc.; < spoil + ‑age
• stage: Sp. etapa, fase; escenario, escena, tablado; etc.; < Old Fr. estage < V.Lat. staticum < stare ‘to stand’ (cf. Sp. estar)
• stoppage: Sp. paro, suspensión, huelga, etc.; < stop + ‑age
• storage: Sp. almacenaje, almacenamiento; almacén, depósito; < (v.) store + ‑age
• tonnage (‘the size or carrying capacity of a ship measured in tons’, 1 ton = 2,000 pounds or 0.907 metric tons, COED): Sp. tonelaje (< tonelada ‘metric ton’; < ton + ‑age
• umbrage (‘resentment, offense, annoyance’, obs. ‘shade, shadow’, cf. umbrella): Sp. resentimiento; < O.Fr. ombrage, umbrage ‘shade, shadow’ < Lat. umbraticum < umbra ‘shade, shadow’ (cf. Sp. sombra)
• undercarriage: Sp. chasis; tren de aterrizaje; < under + carriage (see above)
• usage: Sp. uso; costumbre, usanza; < O.Fr. usage ‘custom, tradition, use, employment (of something), conduct, manner; etc.’ (OED) < Lat. usus ‘use, custom, habit, skill’ < p.p. of ūtī ‘to use’
• vantage: Sp. punto de vista; < O.Fr. avantage (cf. advantage above)
• vassalage: Sp. vasallaje; < O.Fr. vassal(l)age < vassal (Sp. vasallo; Celtic word, earlier vassus) (cf. medieval Latin vassallagium)
• verbiage: Sp. verbosidad, palabrería, verborrea; < Fr. verbiage (1671) < verbier ‘to sing-song’ (obs.)
• village: Sp. pueblo, aldea; < O.Fr. vilage ‘group of houses and other buildings (usually smaller than a town)’ < Latin vīllāticum ‘farmstead’ < villa ‘country house’
• ·      voltage: Sp. voltaje, tensión; < volt + ‑age
• voyage: Sp. viaje; < O.Fr. voiage ‘travel, journey, etc.’ < Late Lat. viaticum ‘a journey’ < Lat. viaticum ‘provisions or money for a journey’ (cf. §18.5 below)
• wreckage: Sp. restos del naufragio/accidente; < wreck + ‑age
• yardage: Sp. medida en yardas; < yard + ‑age

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[1] The Old French expression mortgage was translated into Medieval Latin as mortuum vadium and mor(t)gagium. The term is attested in Old French in the 13th century and in English in the 14th. The gage ‘pledge’ part comes from Frankish and is cognate with Eng. wage, a word borrowed into English from a different dialect of Old French. In medieval times, a mortgage was a loan that ended (‘died’) when it was repaid or the mortgagor’s land repossessed. The AHD still gives as the first definition of mortgage something very similar to that: ‘A temporary, conditional pledge of property to a creditor as security for performance of an obligation or repayment of a debt’. Most other dictionaries give a definition of this word much more in accordance with how a normal person understands the term: ‘a legal arrangement by which you borrow money from a bank or similar organization in order to buy a house, and pay back the money over a period of years’ (DOCE). English also developed a verb to mortgage in the late 15th century out of the noun. The verb’s main meaning is ‘to give someone a legal claim on (property that you own) in exchange for money that you will pay back over a period of years’ (MWALD). The verb is also used figuratively with the meaning ‘expose to future risk or constraint for the sake of immediate advantage’ (OAD).

By the way, the word mortgage does not exist in Modern French. The meaning ‘mortgage’ is expressed as prêt (immobilier), lit. ‘real estate loan’ (Sp. préstamo inmobiliario), prêt hypothécaire (Sp. préstamo hipotecario), emprunt logement, lit. ‘housing borrowing’, or hypothèque. This latter term is the most common Spanish equivalent, hipoteca. The term comes from Latin hypotheca ‘a pledge, security, mortgage’, from Ancient Greek ὑποθήκη (hupothḗkē) ‘warning; pledge, mortgage’, derived from the verb ὑποτιθέναι(hupotithenai) that meant ‘to give as a pledge’ (and ‘to suppose, speculate’; literally ‘to put under’, from ὑπό ‘down’ + τιθέναι ‘to put, place’), which is also the source of the cognate nouns Eng. hypothesis ~ Sp. hipótesis. English has also borrowed the word hypothec, which is used in civil law and in Scots law. It was borrowed from French in the early 16th century. French borrowed the term in the 13th century from Latin.

Eng. -age ~ Sp. -aje, Part 15: Latin verbs derived from vĭa (e)

[This entry comes from Chapter 18, "Eng. language and Sp. lenguaje: words ending in Eng. -age and Sp. -aje", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

[GO TO THE LISTING OF ALL THE PARTS OF THIS CHAPTER]

Sp. aviar

Sp. aviar is a rare verb nowadays, obsolete or at least archaic in perhaps most dialects. This verb should not be confused with the homophonous adjective aviar ‘avian’, derived from the noun ave ‘bird’, as in gripe aviar ‘bird/avian flu’ (cf. Part II, Chapter 36).

The verb aviar looks like it should have come from a Latin *adviāre, except that there is no record of such a verb. Italian also has a verb avviare that means something very similar: ‘to begin’, ‘to launch’, ‘to set up’, etc. Since there is no Latin *adviāre, these verbs were probably created in Vulgar Latin from the phrase ad via, lit. ‘to the road’, formed with the preposition ad ‘to’ and the noun vía ‘road’, very.

The original meaning of the verb aviar in Old Spanish was ‘to prepare things for the road’ or, used reflexively, aviarse, ‘to set off for some place’. There are a few more modern meanings such as transitive ‘to prepare, get ready’ and ‘to provide, supply with’, and intransitive (aviarse) ‘to get going’, and, reflexively, ‘to prepare oneself’, like to go outside, and, finally, ‘to manage’, ‘to get by’, as in Me avío con lo que gano ‘I manage with what I earn’ or No sé cómo me las avié para llegar a tiempo ‘I don’t know how I managed to arrive on time’. There is a common if a bit archaic Spanish idiomatic expression, ¡Estamos aviados! or ¡Aviados estamos!, which can translate as something like What a mess we’re in!

The noun avío is derived from the verb aviar and it is also now dialectal and rare. It has several senses. The most common ones are ‘preparation for some activity’, ‘profit, benefit, usefulness’, synonymous with provecho, and ‘provisions’, the things one needs to start off on a trip, and also in some dialects, the stuff one needs to prepare a dish. In the plural, avíos means ‘gear, equipment (for a purpose)’, as in avíos de pesca ‘fishing gear’ or avíos de afeitar ‘shaving tools’.

Sp. previo/a ~ Eng. previous

Finally, the cognate words Sp. previo ~ Eng. previous are two other cognates that contain the noun via, though in this case they are not verbs but adjectives. They come from the Latin adjective praevĭus ‘going before, leading the way’, and in post-classical Latin also ‘foregoing, preceding’. It is formed from the prefix and preposition prae ‘before’, the root vi‑ of the noun via ‘way’, and the ‑us masculine nominative inflectional suffix (prae+vĭ+us; the feminine form of this adjective is praevĭa). These are fairly recent learned borrowings in our languages. Eng. previous dates from the early 17th century and Sp. previo/a, from around the same time, according to some sources.

These two adjectives are not fully equivalent, however. Eng. previous can be used attributively, before a noun and then it means ‘coming or going before (in time or order); foregoing, preceding, antecedent’ (OED), e.g. the previous decade, the previous owner. This sense of previous typically translates into Spanish with the adjective anterior, as in la década anterior (not la década previa) and el dueño anterior. However, Sp. previo/a can also be used attributively when talking about experiences, knowledge, or appointments, as in tengo un compromiso previo ‘I have a previous engagement’.

Less, commonly, Eng. previous can be used predicatively, following a noun or after a verb, always followed by the preposition to, and then it means ‘that precedes, that comes before, antecedent to’ (OED), as in the time previous to his fall. This use of previous (to) typically translates as anterior(es) (a) or, using a preposition, antes (de), e.g. the months previous to her arrival ‘los meses anteriores a su llegada’. When used in an adverbial expression, which is quite rare, previous to can be translated as con anterioridad a, as in previous to their arrival ‘con anterioridad a su llegada’. Instead of previous, English often uses the adjective prior in this context, which translates into Spanish the same way, as anterior or previo/a.

Sp. previo/a is found in some common collocations, often as a translation of Eng. prefix fore‑ or pre‑, such as sin aviso previo or sin previo aviso ‘without (fore)warning; unannounced, without notice’, conocimiento previo ‘foreknowledge, prior knowledge’, entrevista previa ‘pre-interview, prior interview’, planificación previa ‘foreplanning’.

There are also adverbs that have been derived in each language from these adjective, namely Sp. previamente and Eng. previously. Spanish previamente is quite rare, however, and Eng. previously is best translated with the adverbs antes, anteriormente, or the adverbial prepositional phrase con anterioridad. In US TV jargon, the adverb previously is used when starting a sequel episode, as in Previously, on “Lost”,… This use of previously can be translated into Spanish as En episodios anteriores de “Perdidos”…[a]

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[a] Perdidos is the name of the American TV series Lost in Spain. In Spanish America, it was called Desaparecidos.

Eng. -age ~ Sp. -aje, Part 14: Latin verbs derived from vĭa (d)

[This entry is an excerpt from Chapter 18, "Eng. language and Sp. lenguaje: words ending in Eng. -age and Sp. -aje", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

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Lat. obvĭāre

Lat. obvĭāre is another verb that seems to be formed following the same pattern as the previous ones, with the prefix ob­‑ ‘in the way, against, toward’. This verb was several meanings and thus translations. These meanings can be divided into two groups: ‘to withstand, oppose, prevent, hinder, go against, to act counter to’ and, a very different one, ‘to (go out to) meet’.

It does not seem, however, that this Latin verb was derived from the verb viāre by addition of a prefix. Rather, it was derived from the adjective obvĭus (fem. obvĭa, neut. obvĭum), which meant ‘in the way’, ‘obvious’ and ‘meeting’, which is derived from the prefix ob‑ and the root vi‑ of the noun vĭa ‘way’. This Latin adjective is the source of the cognates Sp. obvio/a ~ Eng. obvious, borrowed in the 16th century in English and the 17th in Spanish. Note that English changed the ‑us inflectional ending of the Latin word with the ending ‑ous, which is typically the reflex of the Latin derivational suffix ‑ōs‑us/a, cf. Sp. ‑os-o/a.[1]

The Latin adjective obvĭus seems to have been derived from an adverbial phrase consisting of preposition plus noun: ob viam ‘in the way, towards, against, etc.’. In other words, the adjective obvius came first, derived from the phrase, and was then turned into the verb obvĭāre by the changing of the inflectional endings without the addition of any derivational affixes.

Eng. obviate is a learned 16th century loan from the Latin verb obvĭāre’s passive participle obvĭātus. Actually, it seems that the post-classical Latin noun obvĭātĭōn‑, derived from this verb, was borrowed into English first, in the early 15th century, resulting in the noun obviation, which was used at different times with the two main senses that the verb had in Latin: (1) ‘the action of preventing or avoiding something by anticipatory measures; prevention’, a meaning that obviation still has today in English, and (2) ‘the action of meeting or encountering something; contact with or exposure to something’, a meaning that is today obsolete (OED).[2]

The English verb obviate means ‘to anticipate and prevent (as a situation) or make unnecessary (as an action)’ (MWALD) and it is thus a synonym of the verb prevent, e.g. This new evidence obviates the need for any further enquiries and Disaster was obviated by the opening of the reserve parachute (OALD). English obviate translates into Spanish as hacer innecesario (lit. ‘to make unnecessary’), eludir (cf. Eng. elude), evitar (lit. ‘to avoid’), and even by the very rare cognate verb obviar, a transitive verb that means ‘to avoid, to shun, to remove obstacles or problems’ (Sp. ‘evitar, rehuir, apartar y quitar de en medio obstáculos o inconvenientes’, DLE).

Curiously, Spanish had a patrimonial verb uviar derived from Lat. obvĭāre, now obsolete, which meant ‘to come to, arrive’ (‘acudir, venir, llegar’, DRAE). This sense obviously came from one of the senses of the Latin verb obvĭāre that we saw earlier, namely ‘to come out to meet’.

Sp. extraviar

Sp. extraviar ‘to mislay, lose’ would also seem to be formed from the same pattern that we have seen before: Latin preposition + vĭāre. There is a Latin preposition extra ‘outside of, without, beyond, etc.’, but there is no Latin verb *extravĭāre and no other Romance languages seem to have cognates of it. This Spanish verb appears to be a neologism, created in Spanish, first seen in a dictionary in the 18th century. It is primarily a fancy synonym for the sense ‘to mislay, lose’ of the verb perder, e.g. Extravié las llaves ‘I lost my keys’. (The first definition or sense of this verb in the DLE is ‘to lose something or to not know or forget where it is’.) As expected, the reflexive (pronominal) form of this verb, extraviarse, translates as ‘to get lost’, e.g. Me extravié ‘I got lost’, Se me extraviaron las llaves ‘I lost my keys’. There is at least one set expression formed with this verb, namely extraviar la mirada ‘to avoid looking at something or someone, to avert one’s eyes’. Curiously, this verb was much more common in the 19th and early 20th century than it is today and thus there is an archaic feeling to it, which is probably what makes it seem rather fancy or formal.

Note that though there is no Latin verb *extravĭāre, there is a phrase extra viam in Latin that means ‘outside the road’ and which could have influenced the creation of this neologism in the way that the phrase ob viam is the source of the Latin adjective obvius and, thus, of the verb obvĭāre (see above). There is no evidence for that, however. Do note that the phrase extra viam is used as a technical term in common law. It is used for instance in the phrase extra viam rights, which means

The right of a traveler upon the highway to travel over the abutting property where the highway is out of repair and impassable for practical purposes. 25 Am J1st High § 615. The right of one having an easement of way to depart from the regularly traveled way or path and pass over the abutting land of the servient owner where the latter has obstructed the private way or made it impassable. 25 Am J2d Ease § 70’ (Ballentine’s law dictionary).

Other minor (and less common) senses of the verb extraviar are ‘to mislead’ (a person), ‘to make someone get lost’, or ‘to lead astray’. The reflexive version of this verb, extraviarse, has the intransitive meaning, namely ‘to get lost’, ‘to get mislaid’, ‘to go missing’, as well as ‘to lose one’s way’ (syn. perderse). Other senses are ‘to go astray’ and ‘to be mistaken’.

The associated noun is extravío ‘loss’ and the associated adjective is derived from the past participle, namely extraviado/a ‘lost’. The primary meaning of the fancy and rare noun extravío is ‘the action or result of losing something or getting lost’, which is synonymous with the noun pérdida ‘loss’, e.g. Han denunciado el extravío de un paquete postal ‘They have reported the loss of a package’ (GDLEL). Another, less common sense of this noun is ‘bad or altered habits or behavior’, e.g. los extravíos de la sexualidad ‘sexual deviations’ (AEIV).

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[1] The derivational suffix in question was ‑ōs‑, followed by the nominative inflexional endings (masculine) ‑us, (feminine) ‑a, and neuter ‑um. looked like ‑ōs‑us. English did this spelling change with many other Latin adjectives ending in ‑us that it borrowed.

[2] The noun obviation has acquired a new sense in modern American linguistics, one introduced by Leonard Bloomfield in 1927, namely ‘the marking of a subsidiary third person (in Algonquian and certain other languages); the expression of the obviative [case]. Cf. obviative n. and adj.’ (OED).

Eng. -age ~ Sp. -aje, Part 13: Latin verbs derived from vĭa (c)

[This entry comes from Chapter 18, "Eng. language and Sp. lenguaje: words ending in Eng. -age and Sp. -aje", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

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Lat. dēvĭāre

The next Latin verb derived from vĭāre is dēvĭāre ‘to detour’, ‘to stray’, ‘to depart’. It was formed with the prefix (and preposition) dē ‘(away) from, etc.’. The verb’s principal parts were dēvĭō, dēvĭāre, dēvĭāvī, dēvĭātum. English borrowed this verb from the passive participle form of the verb dēvĭātus in the 16th century, resulting in deviate [ˈdi.vi.eɪ̯t], which means ‘to diverge from an established course or from usual or accepted standards’ (COED). In other words, Eng. deviate refers only to metaphorical or figurative departure from a ‘road’, unlike the original Latin word, which had both the (original) literal sense and the figurative one. It is often used in the expression to deviate from the norm. The Spanish equivalent of deviate (from) is desviarse (de), when deviating from a course, and apartarse (de) when deviating from a norm. (We will return to Sp. desviar in a minute.)

There is also a noun deviate in English, pronounced [ˈdi.vɪ.ət], created in the first half of the 20th century and which is now rare since the same meaning is typically expressed by the related word deviant. The meaning of the noun deviate is ‘a person who, or thing which, deviates; especially one who deviates from normal social, etc., standards or behavior; specifically, a sexual pervert’ (OED). The noun deviate was derived, in English, from the verb deviate and it has also been used as an adjective, though deviant is preferred nowadays.

The word deviant [ˈdi.vɪ.ənt] has been around since the early 15th century, when it was an adjective that meant ‘different, deviating, straying’. Although it could have been created in English from the verb deviate and the Latinate suffix ‑ant, it may also presumably have been borrowed from Late Latin dēviāntem ‘straying, deviating, detouring’, accusative form of the present participle of the verb dēviāre (the nominative form of the participle was dēvĭāns). In the early 20th century, Eng. deviant came to be used as a noun that meant ‘something that deviates from normal’ (Sp. anormal) and not until the middle of the 20th century did it come to mean ‘person whose sexuality deviates from what is held to be normal’ (OEtD), a synonym for the noun deviate that we just discussed (OED). The Spanish equivalent noun is pervertido/a, which literally means ‘perverted’, and is derived from the past participle of the verb pervertir ‘to pervert’ (cf. Part II, Chapter 8, §8.2.4).

As we saw above, a possible translation of the English verb deviate in Spanish is desviarse, the reflexive or pronominal (intransitive) form of the verb desviar. The Spanish verb desviar seems to be patrimonial and it is first attested in the 12th century. It is a semi-false friend of the English verb, since their meanings only partially coincide. Also, it appears to be a false cognate since the Spanish verb has a prefix des‑, which is typically a reflex of the Latin prefix dĭs ‘apart, asunder’, which is used with the meanings ‘privation’, ‘negation’, or ‘inverse action’, instead of de‑, which is what the Latin prefix dē‑ changed to. This, however, is a common switch that happened early on in some Spanish patrimonial words. It stems from a confusion between the two Latin prefixes due to the fact that Lat. dĭs lost its s before some consonants, and thus became Sp. de‑, just like Lat. dē‑ did. Thus, Spanish sometimes confused the two prefixes and turned Lat. dē‑ into des‑, as in the case of the word desviar.

Whereas English deviate is an intransitive verb that means ‘diverge from an established course or from usual or accepted standards’ (COED), Spanish desviar is a transitive verb that means primarily ‘to change course of’, ‘to deflect’, and ‘to divert’. The reflexive version desviarse results in the intransitive version of those meanings, namely ‘to go off course’, ‘to make a detour’, ‘to be deflected’, ‘to turn off’ and occasionally, ‘to deviate’, in the sense of deviating from a given course, as we saw earlier.

In addition to these two verbs, we find a pair of derived cognate nouns in English and Spanish, namely Eng. deviation and Sp. desviación. These nouns come from a Latin noun derived from the passive participle stem of this verb, dēviāt‑, plus the noun suffix ‑ĭōn‑ (cf. Part II, Chapter 10). Not surprisingly, these cognate nouns are no better friends than the verbs they are associated with, even though some dictionaries equate the two (e.g. according to AES, Collins, and OSD, Eng. deviation = Sp. desviación).

Eng. deviation [ˌdi.vɪ.’eɪ̯.ʃən] means ‘the act or result of deviating’ (COED), but more specifically, it means ‘a noticeable difference from what is expected or acceptable’ (DOCE), including ‘deviant behavior or attitudes’ and ‘divergence from an accepted political policy or party line’ (AHD). It seems that the only time that desviación is an accurate translation for deviation is in a number of limited cases, such as when it acts as a technical term in statistics (deviation = desviación = ‘the amount by which a single measurement differs from a fixed value such as the mean’ (COED), e.g. standard deviation = desviación estándar or típica. In other cases, deviation should be translated as divergencia, variación, alejamiento, etc.

As for the meaning of desviación, this word translates primarily into English as diversion or detour. It can also translate as departure, deflection, turning aside, digression, aberration, or abnormality. Besides the collocation with desviación in the field of statistics that we just saw, one other collocation with this word in Spanish is desviación de columna ‘abnormal lateral curvature of the spine’, also known as Eng. scoliosis ~ Sp. escoliosis, from Gk. σκολίωσις (skoliosis) ‘bending’.

Finally, we should mention that Spanish has another noun derived from the verb desviar, namely desvío, which is a synonym of the road-related main sense of desviación, namely ‘detour’. The noun desvío is the result of a conversion (zero derivation) of the verb desviar without the use of derivational affixes, just by changing the verbal inflectional ending ‑ar for a masculine noun inflectional ending ‑o (cf. Part I, Chapter 5, §5.7).

Figure 125: Colombian road sign[i]

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[i] Source: Detour – Regulatory road sign in Colombia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colombia_road_sign_SRO-02_(old).svg (accessed: 2012.11.12)

Eng. -age ~ Sp. -aje, Part 12: Latin verbs derived from vĭa (b)

[This entry comes from Chapter 18, "Eng. language and Sp. lenguaje: words ending in Eng. -age and Sp. -aje", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

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Vulgar Latin *convĭāre

Vulgar Latin had another verb derived from vĭāre, namely *convĭāre, which meant ‘to go together on the road, to accompany on the way’ and, derived from that meaning, ‘to escort’. This verb was derived by means of the prefix com- ‘together’. This verb did not get passed on to Spanish, but it resulted in convoier in Old Central French and in conveier in Old Northern French, and both versions of the verb got passed on to English, both in the 14th century.[1]

Old French convoier, meaning primarily ‘to escort’, became Eng. to convoy [ˈkɒn.vɔɪ̯], originally pronounced with final stress. This verb today means ‘to travel with something in order to protect it’ (DOCE). This verb came first into Scots English with the senses ‘to convey’, ‘to conduct’, and ‘to act as escort’. The main Spanish equivalent of this verb is escoltar, a cognate of Eng. escort. The loanword convoyar has also been used for this meaning in Spanish, but it is very rare.

The noun convoy, also pronounced [ˈkɒn.vɔɪ̯] in Modern English, like the verb, means ‘a group of vehicles or ships travelling together, sometimes in order to protect one another’ (DOCE). The noun convoy does not appear in English until the 16th century, two centuries later than the verb. It may be a back-formation from the English verb to convoy or else, it may be a borrowing from French convoi [kɔ̃.ˈvwa], a noun derived from the verb convoier which, speaking of vehicles or ships, meant ‘to convoy’, though it has can also be used with the sense of 'procession', as in convoi funèbre ‘funeral procession’. At least originally, Fr. convoi conveyed the sense that some of the members of the convoy were escorting others, typically for protection.

Spanish borrowed the noun convoy, pronounced [kom.ˈboi̯], in the 17th century, with the same meaning it has in English and spelling pronunciation (plural: comboyes). Presumably, it was borrowed from French convoi, though the Spanish word’s spelling is like that of the English word, with a final y, but that is most likely due to the fact that that is how the diphthong [oi̯] is spelled at the end of a word in Spanish.

Another possible Spanish translation for Eng. convoy is caravana. The expression to travel in convoy translates into Spanish as viajar en convoy or as viajar en caravana. Eng. caravan originally meant ‘a group of people travelling together across a desert in Asia or North Africa’ (COED). Nowadays, the main meaning of this word in North America is ‘a covered motor vehicle with living accommodation’ (Sp. caravana, casa rodante, etc.) and in Britain, ‘a vehicle equipped for living in, usually designed to be towed’ (COED) (Sp. caravana, rulot, remolque). (A gypsy caravan or covered cart is known as carromato in Spanish.) The ‘procession’ sense of Eng. caravan can also be translated as caravana or, more commonly, as procesión. (The noun procession can be defined as 'a number of people or vehicles moving forward in an orderly fashion, especially as part of a ceremony' and, derived from this meaning, 'the action of moving in such a way' and 'a relentless succession of people or things', COED.)

The cognates Eng. caravan ~ Sp. caravana, were probably borrowed from French caravane. The Spanish word is first documented in the 14th century and the English one, in the 16th. The ancestor of this word is first attested in Europe in Medieval Latin in the 12th century, with different spellings having been recorded: carvana, caravanna, caravenna. It is a word picked up by Europeans in the Middle East during the Crusades and it comes ultimately from Persian کاروان‎ (kârvân) ‘caravan, convoy’, a word derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *ker‑ ‘army’. (English had a now obsolete word here that meant ‘army, hostile force’ that descends from the same PIE root.)

The other Old French reflex of Vulgar Latin *convĭāre is conveier, which was borrowed into English as the verb to convey [kən.ˈveɪ̯], also in the 14th century. The modern meanings of this word are ‘transport or carry to a place’, ‘communicate (an idea, impression, or feeling)’ and, in legal terminology, ‘transfer the title to (property)’ (COED). The verb convey has different translations into Spanish, the most common of which are transportar (goods and people) and transmitir, comunicar, expresar (ideas, feelings, thanks, sound, electricity). In legal terminology, to convey translates as traspasar (a cognate of Eng. trespass) or transferir (a cognate of Eng. transfer).

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[1] Note that this verb does not seem to have been used in Classical Latin. Latin did have verb convehĕre ‘to carry, bear, or bring together’ (L&S), which is not related to the Vulgar Latin verb, despite going back to the same Proto-Indo-European root and contain the same prefix. There are no reflexes of this Latin verb in neither Spanish or English.

Eng. -age ~ Sp. -aje, Part 11: Latin verbs derived from vĭa (a)

[This entry comes from Chapter 18, "Eng. language and Sp. lenguaje: words ending in Eng. -age and Sp. -aje", of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]

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Lat. vĭāre

Latin had a verb derived from the noun vĭa, namely the first conjugation verb vĭāre ‘to travel, journey’ (vĭ+ā+re; principal parts: vĭō, vĭāre, vĭāvī, vĭātum). This verb has not been passed on to either Spanish or English, either as a patrimonial word (in the case of Spanish) or as a learned borrowing (in the case of either language). However, certain Latin words derived from the verb vĭāre have made it into these two languages, such as Sp. enviar ‘to send’, Sp. desviar ‘to deviate, deflect’ ~ Eng. deviate, and Sp. obviar ‘to obviate, remove’ ~ Eng. obviate. In addition, Spanish has derived a couple of verbs from the noun vía, namely aviar ‘to prepare; to supply, provide’ and extraviar ‘to get lost, go astray, lead astray’. We will look at all of these words in the following sections. 

English and Spanish have cognate adjectives, both spelled viable, which might seem to be related to this verb, or at least to the noun vĭa, but are not. (Eng. viable is pronounced [ˈvaɪ̯.ə.bəl] and Sp. viable, [bi.ˈa.βle].) Their main meaning of these words today is ‘capable of working successfully; feasible’, as well as ‘capable of surviving or living successfully’, its original meaning (COED). These words are loanwords from French viable ‘capable of life’, first attested in the 16th century, which is a word derived from the noun vie ‘life’ (cognate of Sp. vida, both derived from Lat. vīta) by means of the suffix ‑able. English borrowed the word viable from French in the early 19th century and Spanish borrowed it some time after that (it doesn’t appear in the DRAE until 1936). French derived the negative version of this word, inviable, in the early 20th century, and this word was soon after borrowed by both English and Spanish, though it is much more common in Spanish. Sp. inviable is best translated into English as unfeasible, with non-viable and unviable being less common options.

Curiously, the Academy’s dictionary, the DLE, claims that Spanish has a second adjective viable in Spanish that is indeed related to the noun vía and means something like ‘transitable, passable’ (Sp. transitable). According to the DLE, this adjective also comes from French and presumably descends from a Vulgar Latin viabĭlis, which is derived from the Latin word vĭa and which is thus not related to the other adjective (vi‑a‑bĭl‑is). No French dictionary seems to confirm the existence of such a word in French, however. Some Spanish dictionaries, such as María Moliner’s, do not mention this second adjective viable, and others, such as Larousse, lump the two as one word and give the meaning ‘transitable, passable’ as one of the meanings of this single polysemous word, a sense synonymous with Sp. transitable. (The other meaning is ‘capable of living’, of course.)

Lat. invĭāre

Sp. enviar [em.ˈbi̯aɾ] ‘to send’ (also ‘to dispatch’, ‘to ship’). It is a patrimonial verb, written embiar in Old Spanish. It comes from Late Latin invĭāre, which is derived from the verb vĭāre ‘to travel’ by prefixation, with the prefix  in‑ ‘in’. Originally, this Latin verb had the intransitive meaning ‘to go along a path’, and from there developed a transitive one, namely ‘to send someone (along a path)’. Thus, Sp. enviar is synonymous with one of the meanings of the verb mandar ‘to send; to order’ (the other main meaning of mandar is ‘to order’).

French also has a patrimonial cognate of this verb, namely envoyer ‘to send’, pronounced [ɑ̃.vwa.ˈje] in Modern French. From the (masculine form of the) past participle of this verb, namely Fr. envoyé, comes Eng. envoy [ˈɛn.vɔɪ̯], a 17th century loanword (the French word is equivalent to Sp. enviado, past participle of the verb enviar). The meaning of Eng. envoy is ‘a messenger or representative, especially one on a diplomatic mission’ (COED). This word may be translated into Spanish as enviado/a, as in enviado/a especial ‘special envoy’, but also as embajador especial or emisario. This use of the past participle of enviar is clearly a semantic calque of the of the cognate French word.

Spanish has derived the noun envío from the verb enviar, which means something like ‘thing that is sent’ and thus can be translated into English by words such as dispatch, shipment, and consignment. This noun is found in collocations such as hacer un envío ‘to dispatch an order’ and gastos de envío ‘shipping and handling costs’.