List of Tagalog Loanwords - Spanish

Spanish

Spanish has bequeathed the most loan words to Tagalog. According to linguists, Spanish (5,000) has even surpassed Malayo–Indonesian (3,500) in terms of loan words borrowed. About 40% of informal conversational Tagalog is practically made up of Spanish loanwords. An example is the sentence below, wherein Spanish–derived words are in italics (original in parentheses):

"Puwede (Puede) ba akong umupo sa silya (silla) sa tabi ng bintana (ventana) habang nasa biyahe (viaje) tayo sa eroplano (aeroplano)?" ("May I sit in the chair near the window during our voyage in the aeroplane?")

Most have retained their original spelling, pronunciation, and definition such as basura, delikadesa ("delicadeza" in Spanish), and demokrasya ("democracia"), or as in the examples, a close, indigenised variant.

Others have morphed like 'ku(ha)nin' (Sp.: 'coja' + Tag. '–nin'), which has inconspicuously developed into another pure Tagalog–sounding word. Another one is maamong kordero (from Sp. amo & cordero). Combined together, it conveys the description of a meek, tame, harmless human with Tagalog adjective prefix and suffix added. The compound word batya't palo–palo, a must word in the laundry business where many Spanish words proliferate. The words were taken from the Spanish batea for "washing tub" and palo for "stick" or "beater", something a typical Filipino might think had no Spanish provenance at all. Others are umpisa (empieza), pulubi (pobre), pader (pared).

Some have acquired an entirely new meaning, such as kursonada (corazonada, originally meaning '"hunch"), which means "object of desire"; sospechoso is the "suspicious person" and not the "suspect" as in the original; imbyerna (invierno) once meant 'winter' but is now a word for "bummer"; insekto ("insecto"), which still means "insect" but also refers to a "pesty clownish person"; or even sigue, a Spanish word for "continue" or "follow", which is now widely understood to mean "all right" or "go ahead".

Others use Spanish prefixes and/or suffixes, combined from Tagalog or other languages, without which the word can not be completed and convey its meaning. For example, pakialamero (from Tag. pakialam, "to meddle" and the Sp. suffix –ero, masculine subject); same as majongero ("mahjong", a Chinese word and the Sp. suffix –ero). Daisysiete is a corruption and portmanteau of the English "daisy" and the Spanish diecisiete ("seventeen"), now meaning a sweet and sexually desirable underaged (below 18, hence the number) female. Bastusing katawán (Sp.: basto & Tag.: katawan) is an example of a two-word term for a bombshell body.

Even after the Spanish era, Tagalog is still being influenced by Spanish as new words are coined, albeit along its own terms, viz., alaskadór ("Alaska" + Sp. suffix '–ador'); barkada (from Sp.: barca,"boat" to "clique"); bérde ("verde"="green", nuanced to "toilet humour" or "blue joke"); which are not readily understood in Spain or any Latin American country. In a strange twist, even if Filipinos have a chance to Tagalized words using foreign words, currently English—their most accessible influence—they coin words in a uniquely Hispanizing way i.e. "boksingero" (from Eng. "boxing") instead of using the Spanish "boxeador". Or "basketbolista" (from Eng. "basketball"), instead of borrowing from Spanish "baloncesto" to make it say "baloncestista" or "baloncestador" (although basketball is "básquetbol" in many Latin American countries).

Here are the examples of Spanish–derived Tagalog words in the following format: Word (Etymology – Original Definition/s if different from Nuanced Definition. = Derivative Definition if Compound Words) – Nuanced Definition. Shared Definition precedes Nuanced Definition if both exist.