Spain's casual verb for expressing that something appeals to you — living entirely in conversation, never in writing, marking speakers as distinctly peninsular.
When a Spaniard says "eso mola," they're not translating anything — they're reaching for the exact word that captures "I'm into this." The phrase works like a verb: "me mola" (I'm drawn to it), "mola mazo" (it's seriously appealing). It lives entirely in spoken Spanish, the kind of language that happens between friends, not in formal writing.
The word traveled from Spain's Romani community into Madrid's working-class neighborhoods during the 1970s, carried in Caló — the Spanish dialect of Romani. Its root traces back through Sanskrit, across language families and a thousand years, but most young Spaniards using it today have no idea. They inherited it the way you inherit any word: by hearing it, feeling what it means, using it.
What makes "molar" interesting isn't just its journey — it's what its survival says about Spain. During the democratic transition after Franco, young people reached for street-level vocabulary as authentic expression. A word from a historically marginalized community became the natural way an entire generation expressed appreciation. The Royal Academy eventually recognized it officially, etymology and all: proof that language moves faster than institutions, and sometimes the margins define the center.