Ocho

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. A numeral used in Spanish to refer to the number eight
2. Signifying the quantity that comes after seven in counting
3. An element representing a quantity often found in various cultures' numerical systems

Etymology: "Ocho" is the Spanish word for "eight," and it comes from Latin "octo," the same source as English "eight" and "octave." Its ancestor reached Spanish through Vulgar Latin, the spoken everyday form of the language, which lost the Latin ending and shifted the stressed vowel over the centuries, so "octo" became "ocho" through regular sound changes. The initial "o" and the "ch" sound are typical of that development, and the Spanish spelling "ch" once represented a sound that English speakers would hear as "ch" in "church." The English word "eight" traces back to the same Indo-European root as the Latin, and the match between "octo" and "eight" is a familiar example of sound correspondence across languages. In English, the Latin root was borrowed directly into words like "octave," "octagon," and "October," the eighth month of the old Roman calendar.

Synonyms: eight, octet, octagon, octuple, octave