It comes from Latin, specifically “vocabulum”, which is the result of the sum of two components:
- The verb “vocare”, which can be translated as “to call”.
- The suffix "-bulum", which is used in an instrumental sense.
It is the set of letters that conventionally designates a thing or an idea. Although the word is used as a synonym for a word, that is, as the minimum unit endowed with a communicational sense, separated by pauses from each other, and as such they can have one or more syllables, be a national language or be foreign; Words in the strict sense, can include many words that derive from it, for example the word friend, we find that the words friend, friends and friendship are derived, being the words that more derived words allow, actions or verbs, because each one of their pronouns or verb tensesthey are different words derived from the verb that is the word. For example, from the word jump are derived the words: jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, and so on.
There are many classifications with respect to words, although we must emphasize that one of them is due to the accentuation they have and then it is possible that we can find sharp, serious or spherical words. The first ones are those that are stressed on the last syllable when they end in n, or vowel, the bass, which are the most abundant in our language, are those that are stressed on the penultimate syllable, while those with accents on the penultimate syllable are the esdrújulos.
Words can be made up of a single syllable, as are the cases yes, no, vi, among others, and that is why they are called monosyllables. Although it has more syllables, one, two, three, four or more, we generally call them polysyllables.
It is important to note that words can be classified differently, according to different criteria. There are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns, among other grammatical categories. The number of syllables, stress and internal structure are other characteristics that can be considered to classify words.
It is interesting that when we study in depth our language, Spanish, we not only proceed to determine what type of element each word is (adjective, verb, noun, preposition…) but, in a similar way, we also undertake what is the discovery of its etymological origin. And this is how, among other things, we can leave doubts about the meaning they have.