Morgan on Jul 13, 2020 in Spanish, True Spanish Etymology Stories Posted byonin

Es­posa and spouse both come from the same root, and both mean the same thing — that one was ob­vi­ous!

How­ev­er, it gets more in­ter­est­ing: both come from the Latin spon­dere, mean­ing, “to bind”.

From this root we al­so get the Span­ish word es­posas, which means (in ad­di­tion to mean­ing just “wives”), al­so means… hand­cuffs.

Yes, in Span­ish, “hand­cuff” and “wife” are the same word. It gets the point across clear­ly, does­n’t it?