Today’s Spanish word of the day is “ahora”. It’s an adverb meaning “now”. While the word “ahora” literally means “now”, it can sometimes be used to mean “in a minute” or “in a moment”. The diminutive “ahorita” is also used to mean “about now” or “in a minute”, especially in Latin America. Some common phrases
Today’s Spanish word of the day is “listo” in the masculine form, or “lista” in the feminine form. It’s an adjective meaning “ready” or “clever”. The origin of the word “listo” is disputed. One theory is that it could come the Gothic word listeigs, meaning “cunning” or “crafty”, though it has also been suggested it
Today’s Spanish word of the day is “sin”. It’s a preposition meaning “without”. The word “sin” is used several common expressions, including the following: Although it’s spelled identically to the English word “sin”, they have different etymologies. While the English word “sin” is Germanic, Spanish “sin” comes from Latin sine, which also meant “without” and
Today’s Spanish word of the day is “adiós”. It’s an interjection meaning “goodbye”. “Adiós” is a contraction of the phrase “a Dios”, literally meaning “to God”, a bit like “goodbye” in English, which was originally a contraction of “God be with ye”. Like English “goodbye”, Spanish “adios” can sound a bit formal, and more casual
Today’s Spanish word of the day is “adelante”. It’s an adverb meaning “forward”, “ahead”, “further [on]” or “in front of”. It can also be used as an interjection to mean “come in”, for example to respond to someone knocking on a door. The word comes from adding the preposition “a” (“to”) to the word “delante”
Today’s Spanish word of the day is “oficial”. It can be an adjective meaning “official”, or a noun meaning “officer”. As a noun, it can also refer to craftspeople who have completed an apprenticeship but haven’t yet reached the level of “maestro”. The word “oficial” comes from Late Latin officialis meaning “pertaining to duty”, which
Today’s Spanish word of the day is “bastante”. It can be used as an adjective, adverb or pronoun that can be translated as “enough”, “quite a lot [of]” or “quite”. In some countries such as Colombia, Argentina and Chile, the word “bastante” is often used to mean something more like “a lot” or “too much”
Today’s Spanish word of the day is “cercar”. It’s a verb meaning “to fence in”, “to enclose”, or “to surround”. It can also be used in military contexts to mean “to besiege”. The word “cercar” comes from Latin circare, meaning “to circle”, which is also the root of the English words “search” and “research”, with
Today’s Spanish word of the day is “problema”. As you might have guessed, it means “problem”. Although it ends in -a, “problema” is a masculine noun. That’s because it comes from the Greek word problema, which was treated as a neuter noun in Latin and absorbed as masculine in Spanish, along with other Greek-origin nouns
Today’s Spanish word of the day is “silencio”. It’s a masculine noun meaning “silence”. The word comes from Latin silentium, which in turn came from the Latin verb silere, meaning “to be quiet” or “to be still”. This is also the root of several English words including “silence” and “silent”. Example sentences El silencio en
