Cuatro

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A numerical term representing the quantity four in Spanish
2. The word denotes the integer that comes after three and before five in a counting system used in various cultures
3. Referring to the cardinal number symbolizing a total of four units or items

Etymology: "Cuatro" is the Spanish word for four, and in English it is a borrowing that has shifted a little from its Spanish sense. It entered English as a term for a small four-stringed guitar, the cuatro, which is central to Puerto Rican music and is also found in Venezuela and other parts of the Caribbean and Latin America. The instrument takes its name from the number of its strings, so the word describes an object by counting it, much as a "quartet" does for four players. The word is a doublet of "four" and "quatre," meaning that all three descend from the same ancient root and reached modern languages by different routes. English "four" is inherited directly from Old English, while "quatre" entered French and "cuatro" developed in Spanish from Latin "quattuor." So a Spanish speaker counting to four and an English speaker saying "four" are using the same word at two different points in its family tree.

Synonyms: four, fourth

Antonyms: zero, one, two, three, five