Plaza is Spanish, borrowed in 1830 for a public square of the kind found in Spanish and Spanish-American towns. Behind the Spanish is Latin platea, "courtyard, broad street," from a Greek word meaning broad, from an Indo-European root meaning "to spread."
The interest here is the company it keeps. That same Latin platea, taken through French, gives English place; taken through Italian it gives piazza; taken through Spanish it gives plaza. Three English words, one Latin ancestor, three routes, and each keeps the flavour of the country it came through — a plaza is Spanish or Mexican, a piazza is Italian, and a place is so thoroughly naturalised that nobody thinks of it as borrowed at all. The -a ending is the Spanish marker, as in vanilla, armada and siesta.
plaza (n.) "public square or open space surrounded by houses," originally in a Spanish or Spanish-American town or city, 1830, from Spanish plaza "square, place," from Vulgar Latin *plattia, from Latin platea "courtyard, broad street" (from PIE root *plat- "to spread"). also from 1830
plaza came in through Later and wider borrowings, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
What gives it away on the page
| -o/-a endings, ll, rr, ny for ñ | Spanish — much of it from the Americas.tornado, cargo, plaza, armadillo, guerrilla, canyon, mosquito |
Later and wider borrowings in the spelling guide · guess another word's family