If you’ve ever heard someone call an earthquake a “tremblor,” they weren’t exactly wrong, but that word developed out of an incorrect pronunciation (or mishearing, relating it to the verb “tremble”) of the earlier word “temblor.” “Temblor,” meaning “earthquake,” came into English in the late 19th century from the Spanish word “temblor,” which means “a trembling.” Yes, the English word “tremble” has the same Latin root as the Spanish word — the Latin “tremulare,” meaning “to tremble, shiver, quake” — so it makes sense that the pronunciation shifted to “tremblor” over time.