List of Arabic Loanwords in English - M

M

macramé

مقرمة miqrama, a kind of embroidered cloth covering (Arabic root qaram, "to gnaw, to nibble persistently"). The path to English is said to be: Arabic -> Turkish -> Italian -> French -> English. 19th-century English.

magazine

مخازن makhāzin, storehouses (from Arabic root khazan, to store). Used in Latin with that meaning in 1228 in Marseille, the earliest known record in a Western language. Still used that way today in French, Italian, Catalan, and Russian. Sometimes used that way in English in the 16th to 18th centuries, but more commonly in English a magazine was an arsenal, a gunpower store, and later a receptacle for storing bullets. A magazine in the publishing sense of the word started out in English in the 17th century meaning a store of information about military or navigation subjects.

marcasite

مرقشيثا marqashīthā, iron sulfide, pyrite. An alchemy word. Used by Al-Razi in early 10th century and by Ibn Sina in early 11th century. The earliest record in a Western language seems to be in an Arabic-to-Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona in the late 12th century. In modern English, marcasite is defined scientifically as orthorhombic iron sulfide, but marcasite jewelry is jewelry made from isometric iron sulfide.

massicot

مسحقونيا masḥaqūniyā, a lead-containing glaze applied in the manufacture of vases. In modern English massicot is defined as orthorhombic lead monoxide. The word's history goes back to medieval Latin massacumia, which was a lead-based ceramics glazing material in Italy in the late 13th century, and came from Arabic masḥaqūniyā (mas-ha-qun-iya) meaning the same.

mattress, matelasse

مطرح matrah, a large cushion or rug for lying on. In Arabic the sense evolved out of the sense "something thrown down" from root tarah = "to throw". Classical Latin matta = "mat" is no relation. In 13th-century Latin and Italian, followed by 14th-century French and English, the mattress word usually meant a padded under-blanket, "a quilt to lie upon".,

mohair, moiré

المخيّر al-mokhayyar, good-quality cloth made of goat hair (from root khayar = "choosing, preferring"). Earliest record in the West is 1542 Italian. Early English was spelled "mocayare", starting 1570. The mutation in English to "mohaire" is first seen in 1619. . Moiré means a shimmering visual effect from an interweaved or grating structure. It started out in French as a corruption of mohair.

monsoon, typhoon

These words referred to wind and rain events off the coasts of India and China in their earliest use in Western languages and are seen first in Portuguese in the early 16th century. Arabic sea-merchants were active in the East Indies long before the Portuguese arrived – see e.g. Islam in the Philippines and camphor and benzoin in this list. موسم mawsim, season, used in Arabic for anything that comes round once a year (such as festive season) and used by Arab sailors in the East Indies for the seasonal sailing winds. طوفان tūfān, a big rainstorm, a deluge, and used in the Koran for Noah's Flood. More about the early history of the two words among European sailors in the East Indies is in A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive, by Yule and Burnell (year 1903).

mufti (dress)

المفتي al-muftī , mufti. The phrase 'mufti day' is sometimes used instead of 'own clothes day' in some English speaking schools to mean a day when students and teachers can wear their own clothes rather than the institution's uniform/smart clothes. The term originated in the British Army in the early 19th century.

mummy

موميا mūmiyā, a bituminous embalming substance, and secondly a corpse embalmed with the substance. The late medieval West borrowed the Arabic word in both of those senses. Then post-medievally in the West the word was extended to a corpse preserved by desiccation (drying out).

muslin

موصلي mūsilī, fine cotton fabric made in Mosul in Mesopotamia. The word entered the West with that meaning in the 16th century. The fabric was imported from Aleppo by Venetians who called it mussolina. The earliest record in English is in a traveller's report from the Middle East in 1609.