Kilo Lingo

Line drawing of eŭro
Coloured illustration of eŭro
#1898 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

euro

Word origin

Clipped from Eŭropo, the continent, when the currency was named in 1995. Eŭropo comes through Latin from Greek Europe, the mythological princess carried off by Zeus; the older guess that it means 'wide face' from eurus and ops is no longer much believed.

Origin
Greek, via Latin
Root
Eŭropo
English cognates
euro, Europe

Examples

.

The book cost ten euros.

?

Do you have five euros?

.

We paid the invoice in euros.

Two things to get right, and they are both about the letter E.

The currency is a common noun and takes a small letter: , exactly like dolaro, franko and pundo. The continent is a proper noun and keeps its capital: o. So but o, and the adjective a (European) is lower case again because Esperanto does not capitalise adjectives of nationality the way English does.

The second thing is the itself. It is a diphthong, one syllable, not two: -ro has two syllables, not three, and the ŭ is the w of "how" rather than a vowel in its own right. In the x-system used for typing without the accented letters it is written euxro, which is the slug this page lives at; the proper spelling always carries the breve.

Being clipped from o is the reason the word has no plural oddity and declines like any other noun: , , . English wobbles between "ten euro" and "ten euros" depending on which official style guide has got hold of the writer. Esperanto does not wobble.

Where this fits

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Esperanto · Free printables

eŭro: worksheet, infographic and listicle

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This word is part of lesson 38.