atrocious — an adjective to describe something that is shockingly cruel or utterly appalling
atroz — the Spanish cognate of the same meaning
ferocious — an adjective to describe someone or something who is given to unrestrained brutality
feroz — the Spanish cognate of the same meaning
Normally, I stray nowhere near politics in the things I write, but today I’m making a small exception in relation to the words I’ve chosen. Yes, I chose to highlight them because of the exceedingly “atrocious” events that are unfolding across the world in the Ukraine right now. The people there are suffering “ferocious” attacks. My heart goes out to them.
All right, I’ll leave the politicizing behind now to focus on these words. Since they have similar meanings, it works well to learn their Spanish cognates together. Additionally, their Spanish cognates have similar spellings, so it makes it easier to learn them as a pair.
At first glance, “atroz” might not look like the cognate to “atrocious” since it is much shorter, but when you see “feroz” as the cognate to “ferocious,” a pattern emerges. These are two or only a few cognate pairs that work like this between English and Spanish (another is “precoz” for “precocious”), so it’s not a far-reaching pattern, but it’s a pattern nevertheless. If you imagine the “c” in the two English words as a “z” instead and then just lop off the rest of each word, then voilà, you now have the Spanish words. Isn’t this fun?
Hmm, perhaps the word “fun” shouldn’t be used in a discussion of words like “atrocious” and “ferocious,” but using it to describe playing with words is quite fitting, in my opinion.
Time for a mini, and dare I say fun?, Spanish lesson using the words “atroz” and “feroz.” These are both adjectives, and in Spanish when you use an adjective, it must match the gender and number of whatever noun it’s describing. There’s no need to change either of these words for gender, though, because they happen to stay the same no matter if the noun is masculine or feminine; however, if the noun is plural, something interesting happens.
In Spanish, when a noun or an adjective that ends in a “z” needs to become plural, that final “z” becomes the letter “c” and then you add “es.” Thus, you get “atroces” and “feroces.” There’s that letter “c” that we see in our English versions of the words! So, if you wanted to say “ferocious animals” in Spanish, you’d say “animales feroces,” and if you wanted to say “atrocious acts,” you’d say “actos atroces.” I specifically chose nouns that were cognates so that those examples would be clearer. (And if we had some “precocious princesses” we’d call them “princesas precoces.”)
When you take the adjectives and make them nouns, you get “atrocity” and “ferocity.” Their Spanish cognates are “atrocidad” and “ferocidad.” And if you’re playing along well, perhaps you’ve already correctly surmised that “precocity” would be “precocidad” in Spanish. Admit it, you’re having fun, right?
That’s it for today. I’ll be here hoping that you are neither “atroz” nor “feroz,” but I certainly hope you were “precoz” in your younger years.
Tammy Marshall
Atrocious and Ferocious