Everyday LifeGreek → English
Plaza
/ˈplɑːzə/noun
An open public square in a town or city.
The Greek roots
πλατεῖα
plateîa
broad (street)
Literally: “the wide way”
Follow a root:πλατεῖα2 words
The story of the word
Greek πλατεῖα ὁδός meant broad street, and Latin clipped it to platea. Spanish wore that down to plaza, Italian to piazza, French to place, so a plaza, a piazza and a place are one Greek word in three coats; English borrowed the Spanish version in the seventeenth century. The root adjective πλατύς, flat and wide, also named the platypus, the flat-footed one.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Spanish → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
piazzaplaceplateplatypus
In a sentence
By nine the plaza was full of people who had come out only to be seen walking.