List of Arabic Loanwords in English - Addendum For Words That May (or May Not) Be Arabic Loanwords

Addendum For Words That May (or May Not) Be Arabic Loanwords

almanac

This word's earliest record is in Latin in 1267, where it meant a set of tables detailing movements of stars in the sky. A lot of medieval Arabic writings on astronomy exist, and they don't use the word almanac. (One of the words they do use is "zīj"; another is "taqwīm"). The 19th-century Arabic-word-origin expert Reinhart Dozy said about almanac: "To have the right to argue that it is of Arabic origin, one must first find a candidate word in Arabic" and he found none. The origin remains obscure.

amalgam, amalgamate

This word is first seen in the West in 13th-century Latin alchemy texts, where it meant an amalgam of mercury with another metal. It lacks a plausible origin in terms of Latin precedents. Some dictionaries say the Latin was from Arabic الملغم al-malgham or probably was. But other dictionaries are unconvinced, and say the origin of the Latin is obscure.

antimony

This word was first used by Constantinus Africanus (crossref borage and racquet). He spelled it "antimonium". It may be a Latinized form of some Arabic name, but no clear precedent in Arabic has been found. The substance Constantinus called antimonium was well-known to the medieval Arabs under the names ithmid and kohl and well-known to the Latins under the name stibi | stibium.

Baphomet

A magical or divine figure described by the crusaders and whose cult was attributed to the Templars. Arkon Daraul (a pseudonym of Idries Shah) proposed that the word may derive from أبو فهمة Abu fihama(t), meaning "The Father of Understanding".

barbican

Outer fortification of a city or castle. Recorded in French in 1160. There seems to be little doubt that the word comes from the Crusades. Perhaps from باب خانه bab khanah = "gate-house".

borage (plant), Boraginaceae (botanical family)

Borage is from medieval Latin borago | borrago | borragine. The word is first seen in Constantinus Africanus who was an 11th-century Latin medical writer and translator whose native language was Arabic and who drew from Arabic medical sources. Most of today's etymology dictionaries suppose the word to be from Arabic and the most popular theory is that he took it from أبو عرق abū ʿaraq = "sweat inducer", because tea made from borage leaves has a sweat-inducing (diaphoretic) effect and the word would be pronounced būaraq in Arabic. However, in medieval Arabic no such name is on record for borage.

carafe

First appearance in the West around 1500 in Italian, 1570 Spanish. The Arabic hypothesis is that the verb غرف gharf means to scoop up water for a drink, which you can do by cupping your hands together or by using any scooping or lifting tool at all, and the name of the tool can be the noun غرافة gharāfa. Gharāfa is a good fit phonologically, and can carry the semantics of an intermediate container for a drink, but the word is almost completely absent from Arabic writings and almost completely lacking in other support from history.

drub

Probably from ضرب ḍarb, to strike or hit with a cudgel. The word is not in other European languages. The English word "appears first after 1600; all the early instances, before 1663, are from travellers in the Orient, and refer to the bastinado. Hence, in the absence of any other tenable suggestion, it may be conjectured to represent Arabic ضرب daraba (also pronounced duruba), to beat, to bastinado, and the verbal noun darb (also pronounced durb)."

fanfare, fanfaronade

The English fanfare is from French fanfare, which is very probably from Spanish "fanfarria" and "fanfarrón" meaning bluster, grandstanding, and windbag, which is perhaps from medieval Arabic "farfar" meaning yap-yapping (onomatopoeic).

gala

Today's English, German, and French gala are traceable to late medieval Spanish and Italian gala = "fine clothing worn on special occasions". No parent or precedent can be found for that in Latin. Most dictionaries go with a proposition that the Spanish and Italian word has its origin in Germanic. But it might perhaps have come instead from medieval Arabic خلعة khilʿa = "an honorary vestment", "a fine garment given as a presentation".

garbage

This word is not found in bygone centuries in French (nor other languages). The first record in English is 1422. Its parentage is usually considered to be uncertain. Some examples of nouns formed by suffixing -age to verbs: blockage, leakage, seepage, spoilage, storage, wreckage. Garbage is arguably from English garble = "to sift" (first record 1393), which certainly came to English through the Romance languages from Arabic gharbal = "to sift". The forms "garbellage" and "garblage" meaning the garbage or unwanted material removed by sifting, are recorded spottily in English from the 14th through 18th centuries and those are considered to be certainly from garble.

genet/genetta (nocturnal mammal)

Seen in 13th-century English, 13th-century French and Catalan, and 12th-century Portuguese. It is absent from medieval Arabic writings. Nevertheless an oral dialectical Maghrebi Arabic source for the European word has been suggested. جرنيط jarnait = "genet" is attested in the 19th century in Maghrebi dialect. But the absence of attestation in any earlier century must make Arabic origin questionable.

hazard

English + French hasard is attested in medieval times with the primary meaning of a game of dice. According to its etymology summary in a number of today's English dictionaries, it is probably descended via Spanish azar, attested 1283, from an unattested Arabic oral dialectical az-zār or az-zahr, "the dice". An alternative proposition, having the advantage of support in medieval Arabic dictionaries, derives it from Arabic يسر yasar = "playing at dice" and يسر yasar = ياسر yāsir = يسور yasūr = "gamester". The French hasard is attested more than a century earlier than the Spanish azar. It may have entered French through the Crusader states of the Levant. Or it may not be from Arabic at all.

lilac

It is well documented that the common lilac tree was originally brought to Western Europe directly from Istanbul in the later 16th century. One of the earliest records of the word in the West is from the botanist Carolus Clusius who in 1576 in Latin said the "Lilac" tree came from the Turks. The earliest known record in any vernacular Western language is 1596 in English. Earliest French is 1605. The early Latin, English and French had the exclusive meaning of the common lilac tree, Syringa vulgaris. The tree's native place of origin was the Balkans. The word is widely taken as being descended from a Persian word for blueish color. The Persian is not attested as a tree or a flower; it is attested as a color. A route of intermediation involving Arabic is a possibility.

macabre

Records begin in late medieval French (1376). All the early records involve "the very specific phrase "danse macabre", which denoted a dance in which a figure representing death enticed people to dance with him until they dropped down dead." The meaning can be fitted to the Arabic مقابر maqābir = "graves" (plural of maqbara; from root قبر qabar = "to bury"). Portuguese almocavar = "cemetery" is certainly from the Arabic al-maqābir = "the graves". But there is no known historical context for a transfer of the Arabic into the French danse macabre. Non-Arabic candidates for the origin of the French also exist, but have weaknesses too. Most dictionaries say the origin is highly uncertain.

mafia

Mafia comes from Sicilian mafiusu. Further etymology uncertain and disputed. Some propose an Arabic root for mafiusu; others say the word history prior to 19th century is unknown.

mask, masquerade, mascara, masque

Late medieval Italian maschera = "mask" is the source for the French, English and Spanish set of words. The source for the Italian (first known record circa 1350) is highly uncertain. One possibility is the Arabic precedent مسخرة maskhara = "buffoon, jester". In the context where mask was used, "the sense of entertainment is the usual one in old authors"; see Carnival of Venice, Masquerade Ball, Mascherata, and Commedia dell'arte.

massage

The English comes from French. The French is first recorded in 1779 as a verb masser = "to massage" which then produced the noun massage starting in 1808. The origin of the French is obscure. Perhaps from Arabic مسّ mass = "to touch". Another possibility is from Portuguese amassar = "to knead" or Greek massein = "to knead". Most of the early records in French are found in accounts of travels in the Middle East. The practice of massage was common in the Middle East for centuries before it became common in the West in the mid-to-late 19th century; see Turkish bath. But the Arabic word for massage was a different word (tamsīd | dallak | tadlīk). The fact that the early records in French did not use the Arabic word for massage seems to preclude the hypothesis that the word they did use was borrowed from Arabic.

mizzen-mast

Mizzen (or mizen) is a type of sail or position of a sail mast on a ship. English is traceable to early-14th-century Italian mezzana. Most dictionaries say the Italian word was a derivation from the classical Latin word medianus = "median", even though the mizzen was positioned to the rear of the ship. The alternative is: "It is possible that the Italian word, taken as meaning "middle", is really adopted from Arabic ميزان mīzān = "balance". "The mizen is, even now, a sail that 'balances,' and the reef in a mizen is still called the 'balance'-reef." " The carrack sailing ship mentioned earlier, in its early-15th-century form at least, had a mizzen.

mortise

The word's origin in 13th-century France is without an explanation in terms of French or Latin. A number of dictionaries mention an Arabic hypothesis.

tartar (chemistry), tartrates

The chemical name tartar begins in 13th-century Latin. It occurs often in later medieval Latin alchemy. Its origin is obscure. It is not in classical Latin or Greek in a chemical sense although there was a mythological hell called Tartarus. Medieval Arabic dictionaries have the name دردي durdī with the same chemical sense as tartar and with records going back centuries earlier. Therefore an Arabic parent for "tartar" has been conjectured by Skeat, Weekley, Devic, and others.

tobacco

The English word comes from Spanish. A majority of dictionaries say the Spanish comes from the Amerindian language of Haiti. But Harper reports that "Spanish tabaco (also Italian tabacco) was a name of medicinal herbs from circa 1410, from Arabic tabbaq, attested since the 9th century as the name of various herbs. So the word may be a European one transferred to an American plant."

traffic

This word, which is in the great majority of European languages today, is seen earliest in early 14th century Italian. Records from Pisa in the 1320s have noun traffico and verb trafficare. The early meaning was "bringing merchandise to a distant selling market", more often than not by sea, "commerce, usually and especially long-distance commerce". The origin is obscure: various propositions have been aired from Latin and Arabic sources but none very convincingly. The following are Arabic loanwords in English that got estabished in later medieval commerce on the Mediterranean Sea and have start dates in Italian (also Catalan) earlier than Spanish or Portuguese: admiral, arsenal, average, carat, carrack, garble, sequin, tare (weight), and tariff. In view of those borrowings, and because "traffic" lacks a convincing derivation from Latin, an Arabic source for "traffic" is a possibility.

zircon, zirconium

Today's definitions for zircon and zirconium were set by chemists in Germany around the year 1800. Medieval Arabic زرقون zarqūn meant cinnabar, red lead, and similar minerals. The Arabic was clearly borrowed into Spanish and Portuguese as azarcon | zarcão with the same meaning as the Arabic. But the connection between those and zircon is obscure. About half the etymology dictionaries take the position that zircon's ancestry is not known beyond the late-18th-century German word Zirkon. The other half say zircon descends from Arabic somehow, or probably does.