mundo (Spanish)
Where does "mundo" come from?
The Spanish word "mundo" descends from the Latin "mundus," which originally meant "clean," "neat," or "adorned." Over time, this term for an orderly or well-arranged state evolved to represent the physical world as a well-ordered system, eventually becoming the standard word for "world" in Spanish.
Full etymology tree
- mundo (Spanish), 'world, earth (human collective existence)'
- learned borrowing mundus (Latin), 'clean, pure; neat'
- inherited 𐌌𐌖𐌈 (muθ) (Etruscan)
- inherited *mh₂nd- (Proto-Indo-European)
- inherited *m(y)ewh₁- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to move'
- learned borrowing mundus (Latin), 'clean, pure; neat'
Ancestors
- mundus (Latin)
Cognates and doublets
- món (Catalan)
- monde (French)
Descendants and derived words
- mundo (Tagalog)
- al cabo del mundo (Spanish)
- bola del mundo (Spanish)
- comerse el mundo (Spanish)
- culo del mundo (Spanish)
- desde que el mundo es mundo (Spanish)
- el mundo es un pañuelo (Spanish)
- fin del mundo (Spanish)
- hombre del mundo (Spanish)
- hundirse el mundo (Spanish)
- irse de este mundo (Spanish)
- mandar a otro mundo (Spanish)
Updated July 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris