Animals, plants & weather

cobra

Cobra is just Portuguese for 'snake', from Latin colubra; the Portuguese in India called the hooded species cobra de capelo, 'snake with a hood', and English kept only the first word, which then went to French, German, Russian and Japanese. Spanish culebra and French couleuvre are the same Latin snake.

Weakest linkCertain

The road to English

From Latin to Spanish

From Latin to Old French, French

From Portuguese to Brazilian Portuguese

From English to French

From English to German

From English to Russian

From English to Japanese

50 BCELatin

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.

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