Word of the Day: Pronto
Pronto is an adverb which means immediately or without delay. People usually insert it into a sentence after the verb they want to modify to add effect. From my experience, it’s also generally used in short sentences such as when your mother gets angry at you because you’re late for dinner and says, “Get home, pronto!”
As we’ve seen before, English likes to ‘borrow’ words from other languages such as French or Latin. We like to call them loanwords, but they’re really stolen because we rarely give them back again.
Well, today’s word is no different. It has its origin in the Spanish language which initially got the word from Latin.
Over the last few hundred years, it’s travelled a long way from Latin to Spanish to English to me and now on to you. Remember its legacy and use it as you wish.
If there’s an urgent need for a document, your boss may say, “I want you to create that document, pronto.”