The Spanish verb 'potar' comes from the Latin word 'potare', meaning 'to drink'. The Latin word was combined with the Spanish infinitive verb suffix '-ar' to form 'potar'. Interestingly, while the original Latin meaning was simply 'to drink', in Spanish the meaning has shifted to primarily mean 'to vomit' - essentially the opposite action of drinking! This kind of semantic change, where a word's meaning shifts to something related but different (in this case, from ingesting liquid to expelling it), is fairly common in language evolution.

Some related Spanish words that may be more familiar include 'poción' (potion) and 'potable' (drinkable), which maintain the original Latin meaning related to drinking rather than the shifted meaning of 'potar'.

English speakers might recognize this root in words like 'potion' (a drink, especially a magical or medicinal one), 'potable' (safe to drink), and even 'poison' (which originally referred to a drink that could kill). All these words trace back to the same Latin root 'potare' meaning 'to drink'.