amar (Spanish)

Where does "amar" come from?

The Spanish verb 'amar', meaning to love or have great affection for[1], is inherited directly from the Latin 'amāre'[1]. Looking further back, Latin 'amo' descends from Proto-Italic '*amō'[2]. Scholars suggest a root in Proto-Indo-European '*h₃emh₃-', meaning to seize or take hold, which shifted in meaning from taking by the hand to regarding as a friend and eventually to loving[3].

Open questions

• The derivation from Proto-Indo-European '*h₃emh₃-' via a semantic shift involving taking hold is a suggested etymology rather than a directly attested one. [3]

Full etymology tree

• amar (Spanish), 'to love, have great affection for, care about'
  • inherited amare (Latin), 'inflection of amō:'
    • inherited amo (Latin), 'to love'
      • inherited *amō (Proto-Italic), 'to get hold of'
        • derived *h₃emh₃- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to grab, to grasp, to seize, to take hold, tackle, touch'

Ancestors

• amo (Latin)

Descendants and derived words

• desamor (Spanish)
• el amante en lo que ama, imperfecciones no halla (Spanish)
• enamorar (Spanish)
• te amo (Spanish)

Related words

• beso (Spanish)

Sources

1. amar (Spanish) - Wiktionary
2. amo (Latin) - Wiktionary
3. amō (Proto-Italic) - Wiktionary

Updated October 2026

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