Much v. Mucho.

[Jim_B]

Something I have wondered about for some time now. But I didn’t know how to parse it as a Google search.

Is there any relationship between the English word ‘much’ and the Spanish word ‘mucho’?

They seem to have very similar meanings. But I recall reading somewhere that ‘much’ is from the Anglo-Saxon, mycal or something like that. Spanish is a Romance language. So I assume ‘mucho’ is from Latin somehow.

What is the straight dope?

:):)

[Alley_Dweller]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/much#Etymology

From Middle English muche (“much, great”), apocopated variant of muchel (“much, great”), from Old English myċel, miċel, micel (“large, great, much”), from Proto-Germanic *mikilaz (“great, many, much”), from Proto-Indo-European *meǵa- (“big, stour, great”), *meǵh₂-. See also mickle, muckle.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mucho#Spanish

From Old Spanish mucho, from Latin multus (“much, many”), from the Proto-Indo-European *ml̥tos (“crumbled, crumpled”, past passive participle). Compare the Portuguese muito (“much, many, a lot”). Unrelated to English much.