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bolero

buh-LAIR-oh · noun

LatinSpanishEnglish

Origin

Bolero comes from Spanish bola, meaning 'ball,' plus the suffix -ero, which turns a noun into a related noun or adjective. English borrowed the word whole from Spanish.

Journey

English first used bolero as a noun in 1787, and by 1834 it had also become a verb.

Related words

The suffix -ero traces back through Latin -arius, the same ending that gives English words their '-ary' or '-er'-like agent sense, though bolero itself was borrowed directly rather than built in English.

More words

From Spanish

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