embarazada
ES [embaɾaˈθaða] · Spanish for “pregnant” · looks like English embarrassed
The warning on a box of painkillers in a Spanish pharmacy says to consult a doctor si está embarazada. Reading that for the first time I thought this was an unusually considerate country - check with a professional if the tablets make you self-conscious.
Embarazada is pregnant. Everybody learning Spanish gets warned about this one early, normally with a story about somebody announcing a pregnancy to a meeting room when all they meant was that they had gone a bit pink. I had the warning. I still misread the box.
These two are the same word, which is what makes the trap so tidy. It starts in Iberia with a word for a cord or a noose, and embarazar meant to tie something up and leave it caught. Spanish took that towards being encumbered and carrying a weight, and landed on pregnancy. The word then went out through Italian and French and arrived in English, where for a long time it meant to hinder or obstruct - an embarrassed estate was one tangled up in debt. The obstruction only moved indoors later and turned into a feeling. English borrowed the word from Spanish and then handed back a meaning Spanish had never asked for.