origins.greek.learned-layer
Greek in Spanish: three different doors
Greek reached Spanish three times: worn down through Latin (iglesia, escuela, palabra), dressed in Arabic during the Middle Ages (alquimia), and coined fresh for science since the Renaissance (teléfono, psicología).
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Explanation
The first door was Latin. Rome borrowed enormously from Greek, and those words came down to Spanish worn like any inherited word — which is why they are unrecognizable as Greek: iglesia (< Latin ecclesia < Greek ekklēsía 'assembly'), obispo (< episcopus 'overseer'), escuela (< schola), bodega and botica (both from the same apotheca 'storehouse'), cuerda (< chordá), golpe (< colaphus 'a blow'), huérfano, cámara, tío. The most striking is palabra: the ordinary Spanish word for 'word' is Greek parabolḗ 'comparison', which also gave parábola as a learned doublet. Christianization added another Greek layer — ángel, diablo, evangelio, bautizar, monje.
The second door was Arabic. Al-Andalus preserved, translated and extended Greek science, and some Greek terms re-entered Spanish wearing an Arabic coat: alquimia comes from Greek khymeía by way of al-kīmiyāʾ, and much of the medieval vocabulary of medicine, astronomy and mathematics travelled the same route. These words carry Arabic morphology on a Greek root — a good reminder that borrowing chains matter as much as origins.
The third door is still open. Since the Renaissance, science has built terms out of Greek roots on demand: teléfono, biología, democracia, psicología, fotografía, termómetro, and thousands more. Because every European language did the same, these are effectively free vocabulary for anyone arriving from English, French or German. Their spelling gives them away: initial ps- (psicología, normally pronounced just /s/), ph written f (filosofía), th written t (teatro), Greek χ written c or qu (carácter, química), plus the productive combining forms -logía, -grafía, -metro, -scopio, hemi-, poli-, hiper-.
Examples
The church is next to the school.
You have my word.
She studies psychology and photography.