Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “cobra” come from?

Cobra comes from Portuguese cobra, from Latin colubra, a word for snake that descended from earlier Latin coluber with the same meaning.

cobra (English): Any of various venomous snakes of the family...

Definitions

  1. Any of various venomous snakes of the family...

Ancestry of “cobra”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Portuguesecobrasnake
2Old Portuguesecoobrasnake
3Vulgar Latincolobra—
4Latincolubraa female snake, serpent; snake, serpent
5Latin-asuffixed to the roots of verbs, forms agent...
6Proto-Italic-ā—
7Proto-Indo-European-éh₂—

Words derived from “cobra”

  • cobralike
  • コブラ
  • cobra
  • kobro
  • cobra
Every word from Proto-Indo-European -éh₂ →