emoción (Spanish)

Where does "emoción" come from?

The Spanish word 'emoción' was borrowed from the French 'émotion,' which traces its roots back to the Latin 'ēmovēre,' meaning 'to move out or away.' This Latin term combined 'ex-' meaning out, and 'moveō,' the latter of which descends from a Proto-Indo-European root simply meaning 'to move.' Over time, the concept evolved from a literal physical displacement into its modern usage referring to an internal state of being or emotional excitement.

Full etymology tree

• emoción (Spanish), 'emotion (person's internal state of being)'
  • borrowed émotion (French), 'emotion'
    • derived émouvoir (French), 'to move emotionally; to touch'
      • inherited esmovoir (Old French), 'to move (cause to move)'
        • inherited *exmovēre (Vulgar Latin)
          • inherited ēmovēre (Latin), 'third-person plural perfect active indicative of ēmoveō'
            • prefix ex- (Latin), 'out, away'
            • contraction moveō (Latin), 'to move, stir, set in motion'
              • inherited *moweō (Proto-Italic), 'to move'
                • inherited *m(y)ewh₁- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to move'
    • suffix -tion (French), 'alternative form of -ation: Used to indicate action, condition, result or effect; -tion'
    • influence motion (French), 'motion'
      • inherited mōtiōnem (Latin), 'accusative singular of mōtiō'
        • derived mōtus (Latin), 'moved, stirred, disturbed, having been moved'
          • deverbal movēre (Latin), 'inflection of moveō:'
            • contraction moveō (Latin), 'to move, stir, set in motion'
              • inherited *moweō (Proto-Italic), 'to move'
                • inherited *m(y)ewh₁- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to move'
        • suffix -iō (Latin), 'Used to form abstract nouns from verbs.'

Ancestors

• émotion (French)

Descendants and derived words

• emosyon (Tagalog)

Updated July 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris