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"palabla" sounds like "para habla" (means "for speaking"). There are some similar words like "paraguas, parachoques", but it seems that "para-" here means "parar" (that is, "stop") but not "para". So, "pala-" in "palabla" is different from "para-" in "paragua".
I'd like to know wether "pala-" is a prefix in Spanish or not. If that's true, where is it from and what does it mean? Could you teach me?
Some useful links are para- elemento compositivo, wiki para- and wiki pala-.
The word palabra is a whole word by itself in Spanish, it is not a compound of smaller parts.
The word comes from Latin parabŏla, meaning comparison but came to mean proverb, parable in Vulgar Latin. Before that, the word came from Ancient Greek παραβολή parabolḗ. This, in turn, came from παραβάλλω parabállo, to compare, and finally from παρά pará, next to and βάλλω bállo, to throw.
