red
ES [reð] · Spanish for “net” or “network” · same spelling as English red
Setting up a router in Madrid, I got a screen with red written across it and an empty box underneath. For half a second I went looking for the colour options. There were none. The box wanted the name of my network.
Spanish red is a net first and everything else after. The goalkeeper stands in one, the fisherman throws one, your phone joins one. The colour never gets a look in.
Two words that met by accident. Spanish red comes from Latin rete, a net, and it has spread to cover everything net-shaped since - the one behind a goal, the one a fisherman throws, the social ones and the big one we are all sitting on. English red travels back through Old English to an ancient Indo-European word for the colour. The two have never shared anything. What stings is that Spanish does own a genuine cousin of English red, and it is standing right next to it in the dictionary. Rojo comes from Latin russeus, out of that same ancient colour word. The Spanish for red is related to red. The Spanish word spelled red is not.