chato

Inherited from Vulgar Latin *plattus (“flattened”), from Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús). Given that this word is attested rather late in time, such as in Cervantes' Don Quixote of 1605, it's theorized that it may have been borrowed from Portuguese (where the phonetic shift of the Latin consonant cluster -pl- to -ch- is regular; in Spanish, it generally becomes -ll- instead); alternatively, it may have been a colloquial word used by the people that did not make its way into written documents prior to Spanish Golden Age literature, as only learned people and scholars could write in the Middle Ages. The phonetic evolution in this case may be explained by the word often having been postconsonantal (such as es chato, los chatos, un chato, etc.), which would fit in more with Spanish phonetic norms (compare henchir, hinchar). Doublet of plato, which was borrowed directly from Latin. Cognate to Portuguese chato, Catalan plat, French plat, and Italian piatto.

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