"death" in seven languages
Meaningdeath
Spanish
muerte
/ˈmweɾte/
fem.inherited
French
mort
/mɔʁ/
fem.inherited
Feminine: la mort (but le mort, 'the dead man').
Italian
morte
/ˈmɔrte/
fem.inherited
Portuguese
morte
/ˈmɔhtʃi/
fem.inherited
Romanian
moarte
/ˈmo̯arte/
fem.inherited
Stressed o breaks into oa before an e in the next syllable: MORTEM → moarte.
Catalan
mort
/mɔrt/
fem.inherited
Catalan drops the final unstressed vowel, as French does.
English
death
/dɛθ/
native English · Old English dēaþ
English → ItaliandeathmorteNot relatedDifferent sources — learn this one fresh. But English has relatives: mortal, mortgage, post-mortem.What English and Italian share
The Latin ancestor
MORTEM‘death’
All six sisters descend from it, unless marked otherwise below.
The story
Spanish breaks the open o into ue even in a closed syllable (muerte); Italian only does so in open syllables, so morte stays put. A mortgage is a 'death pledge' — the deal dies when paid off.
English relatives: mortal, mortgage, post-mortem
Learn it
In a sentence
- esLa vida y la muerte.
- frLa vie et la mort.
- itLa vita e la morte.
- ptA vida e a morte.
- roViața și moartea.
- caLa vida i la mort.
- enLife and death.