Gremio (Spanish for “union,”, in the sense of workers, unite!; formerly “guild”–which is really just an old-school union!) comes from the Latin Gremium, meaning “round.” How did this transformation happen? Well, a round pen was where you held onto things; it turned into the word for where people got together, which turned into guild (a common reason people got together!) and then, eventually, to mean union.

However, it gets much more interesting. The Latin gremium comes from the proto-indo-european root *ger– meaning…. to get together! From this root, we also get (via Greek) words like congregate (to bring people together) and segregate (to bring people apart!).

Thus, gremio took an interesting turn over the last few thousand years: from the meaning congregate to round to congregate again!

We can see the g-r root clearly in gremio as well as congregate and segregate.

The English recruit and the Spanish crecer (“to grow”) seem like they have nothing to do with each other. But looks can be deceiving!

“Recruit” comes from, via French, the roots re- (“again”) and the Latin crescere, meaning “to grow” — from which we get the Spanish for the same.

Therefore, a recruit is literally a “new growth” — it is how the next generation is reborn!

Interestingly, we also get, from the same root, the English crescent as well.

Spanish for “lie” (Mentira) comes from the Latin mandacium for the same, which in turn, comes from the earlier Latin menda for “defect; fault”. But the Latin Menda comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *mend- meaning the same, fault or defect.

Thus, we see an interesting transition over time: a defect turned into a lie. The word took on more and more agency: the problem didn’t just happen; it was an explicit lie!

The same PIE root *mend-, in English, took a different route: via French, it turned into the modern English amend and amendment. Thus, in English, “defect” turned into the more accidental, less bad, “lets make a change!”.

We can see the parallels easily: the m-n-t of mentira map to the (a)-m-n-d of amend. The d- and t- transformation is very common and the sounds are often interchangeable.

We also have the English mendacious which is a direct parallel to mentira… but everyone seems to have forgotten that word.

The Spanish for “to pray” is rezar. Although not obvious at first, it is from the Latin recitare, from which we get the English — surprise, surprise — recite. The “cit” grouping was conflated into a “z” sound, so the English (and Latin) r-cit-r maps to the Spanish r-z-r.