etymology of the Spanish word milagro
What are the word origins of the two syllables, mil and agro'
6 Answers
'milagro' procede del latín 'miraculum' (hecho admirable), palabra derivada de 'mirari' 'asombrarse'.
No tiene ninguna relación con Mil ni con Agro.
"Milagro" comes from the Latin "Miraculum" (Admirable event), derivate word of "Mirari" (to be amazed). It has no relation with Mil or Agro
Yes, I did read your post. Thank you for the information about the influence from India. I responded to the other posting after reading both your and his replies.
Thanks for the info about -gro.
Curiosity: English lost many of its inflections after the conquest by William the Conquerer in 1066. From then until close to the time of Chaucer, English was the language of the peasant class: it was excluded from the court, the legal system, and the schools. Nouns lost their system of declension and only retained the singular and plural distinction and the 's for possessives. That simplification made it easier for English to acquire words from other languages either with the original pronunciation or with an anglicized version. Hence the pronunciation problem that persists to this day.
Congratulations on your efforts as a teacher. Your students may like this example of how influential punctuation is in English:
A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
That works rather well in my composition classes. I found it in the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
Chau,
JHT
...for the Sanskrit root for smile.
Sorry, but have you read my post where I give you the Indoeuropean etymology?
By the way, the last syllable has no connection to Sanskrit. It is due to phoenetic changes from Latin to Spanish through the Middle Ages. English has the same Latin word, but with a slightly different inflection.
Thanks for the clarification. I registered with this group when I couldn't find an on-line reference work for Spanish etymology.
I had a debate going with a Mexico City native who insisted that a "thousand acres" was somehow related to milagro because of the Catholic Church's expectation of pay for miracles. Although I don't doubt the monetary association with church-sponsored miracles, I did not believe that etymology would uphold that premise. You helped resolve that debate. Thanks.
Please pardon the oversight with the syllable division. I knew better but had brain dropout. I assume the last syllable of milagro has something to do with inflectional endings over the millenia for the Sanskrit root for smile.
What are the word origins of the two syllables, mil and agro'
Spanish separates syllables completely different from the way English does. This word doesn't have two syllables, but three: mi - la - gro. A consonant between vowels -like L in milagro- always forms a syllable with the next vowel, and not with the first.
As Mogor said, it comes from Latin "miraculum", and this from "mirus, mira, mirum", surprising, amazing. From this root derive in English "miracle", "marvel", "admire", "admiration", "mirror" and "mirage".
Go back further in time, and "mirus" comes from the Indoeuropean "smei-", meaning "smile" (this word itself comes from "smei-").
Mil (from Latin Mille,Milli) ten times hundred
Agro (from Greek and Latin Ager, agri)= land
