Cognate bridge ES agrees with CS · EN

hipoteca

ES [ipoˈteka] · Spanish for “mortgage” · the same word as Czech hypotéka

Feels like a banking term each language cooked up alone Actually both took the Greek word for a pledge

This one caught me in a bank window in Seville, printed above a number I did not enjoy looking at: hipoteca. Czech says hypotéka and means the same mortgage, right down to the low hum of dread.

So that is one word I never had to learn. It seems slightly unfair that the heaviest thing you will ever put your name to is also the easiest to recognise in a country you have just moved to.

Why it happens

Greek had hypothēkē, a thing placed underneath, from hypo, under, and tithenai, to put. It meant the property you set beneath a debt as security. Latin borrowed it as hypotheca and Europe passed it round from there. Spanish ended up with hipoteca and Czech with hypotéka, the meaning intact in both. Its quieter sibling is hypothesis, also something placed under, though what that one props up is an argument rather than a loan. English is the odd man out. It skipped the Greek and took the French mort gage, a dead pledge, which is why an English speaker signs a mortgage and needs a lawyer to explain what a hypothec is.