The Spanish word 'cómo' (meaning 'how') comes from the Latin word 'quomodo', which also meant 'how' or 'in what way'. The Latin 'quomodo' was actually a compound word formed from two parts: 'quo' (meaning 'how, in what way') and 'modo' (meaning 'manner, way'). Over time, as Latin evolved into Spanish, 'quomodo' underwent phonetic changes, with the initial 'qu-' becoming 'c-' (a common change in Spanish), and the word shortened to become the modern Spanish 'cómo'.

This evolution makes intuitive sense when you think about it - the original Latin literally combined words meaning 'in what' and 'manner', creating a word that asks 'in what manner?' or 'how?'

A related Spanish word is 'modo' (meaning 'way' or 'manner'), which comes directly from the Latin 'modo' that formed part of 'quomodo'. You can see this connection when you use phrases like 'de modo que' (meaning 'so that' or 'in such a way that').

While English 'how' is not related to 'cómo', we do have some English words related to the 'modo' part, such as 'mode' and 'modal', which both relate to manner or way of doing something. These come from the same Latin root 'modo' that gave us part of the Spanish word 'cómo'.