cinco (Galician)
Where does "cinco" come from?
The Galician word 'cinco' traces its roots back to the ancient Proto-Indo-European *pénkʷe, meaning 'five.' It traveled through Latin as 'quīnque,' later evolving into Vulgar Latin 'cīnque' via sound changes, before being inherited by Old Galician-Portuguese and eventually modern Galician.
Full etymology tree
- cinco (Galician), 'five'
- inherited cinco (Old Galician-Portuguese)
- inherited cīnque (Latin), 'alternative form of quīnque (with dissimilation of /kʷ–kʷ/ to /k–kʷ/)'
- inherited quīnque (Latin), 'five; 5'
- inherited *kʷenkʷe (Proto-Italic), 'five'
- inherited *pénkʷe (Proto-Indo-European), 'five'
- derived *penkʷ- (Proto-Indo-European), 'fist ?'
- derived *ponkʷ-to- (Proto-Indo-European)
- inherited *pénkʷe (Proto-Indo-European), 'five'
- inherited *kʷenkʷe (Proto-Italic), 'five'
- inherited quīnque (Latin), 'five; 5'
- inherited cīnque (Latin), 'alternative form of quīnque (with dissimilation of /kʷ–kʷ/ to /k–kʷ/)'
- inherited cinco (Old Galician-Portuguese)
Ancestors
- cinque (Latin)
- quinque (Latin)
Updated July 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris