arañar

to scratch

Related: arañazo

Uncertain. Possibly derived from arar (“to plough”), from Latin arāre, with the sense taken from that of making shallow furrows or grooves. Alternatively, linked to araña (“spider”) from Latin arānea, though a semantic link is difficult; perhaps the meaning stemmed from the spider being an aggressive animal, to that of fighting or quarreling, and later a secondary sense of "scratch" developed as a result (compare Old French hargner (“to fight”) and modern French hargneux (“aggressive”), which ma