The Spanish word "hoy" (meaning "today") comes from the Latin word "hodie", which also meant "today". The Latin "hodie" itself was formed by combining two Latin words: "hoc" (meaning "this") and "dies" (meaning "day"). So literally, the original meaning was "this day", which naturally evolved to mean "today".

The evolution from Latin "hodie" to Spanish "hoy" followed a common pattern of phonetic simplification, where the middle 'd' sound was lost and the final '-ie' was reduced to just 'y'.

While "hoy" itself is already one of the most basic and commonly used Spanish words, you might encounter it in common phrases like "hoy día" (nowadays) and "hoy en día" (nowadays, today).

While English "today" developed independently from Germanic roots rather than Latin, we can find the Latin "dies" (day) in many English words. For example, "diary" (a daily record), "diurnal" (relating to the day), and "meridian" (mid-day). The word "journey" also comes from Latin "diurnus" (daily), as it originally meant "a day's travel".