List of Arabic Loanwords in English - T

T

tabla (percussion instrument in music of India)

طبل tabl, drum. English tabla is from Hindi tabla which is from Arabic tabl, which in Arabic has been the usual word for drum (noun and verb) since the beginning of written records.

tahini

طحينة tahīna, tahini. Derives from the Arabic verb for "grind" and is related to tahīn = "flour". Entered English directly from Levantine Arabic around year 1900.

talc

طلق talq, mica or talc. Common in medieval Arabic. Documented in Latin alchemy from around 1300 onward. Not common in the West until the later 16th century.

talisman

طلسم tilsam | tilasm, meaning an incantation and later on meaning a talisman. The Arabic was from Greek telesma = "consecration ceremony".

tamarind

تمر هندي tamr hindī (literally "date of India"), tamarind. Tamarinds were in use in ancient India. They were not known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. They entered medieval Latin medical practice from Arabic. In English the early records are in translations of Latin medical texts. Tamarind's medieval medical uses were various.

tanbur, tanbura, tambur, tambura, tambouras, tamburica, tembûr

These are plucked string musical instruments, each defined a little distinctively. From Arabic طنبور ṭunbūr (also ṭanbūr), plucked string instrument. The tambourine, a percussive instrument, is not likely to be etymologically related. Likewise tambour = "drum" is either unrelated to tambur = "string instrument" or else the relation is poorly understood. With regard to the string instrument, the same word is in Persian and Arabic, and the dictionaries generally report the Persian to be from the Arabic.

tangerine

طنجة Tanja, port city in Morocco: Tangier ("Tanger" in most European languages). Tangerine oranges or mandarin oranges were not introduced to the Mediterranean region until the early 19th century. The English word "tangerine" arose in the UK in the early 1840s from shipments of tangerine oranges from Tangier and the word origin was in the UK. The Arabic name for a tangerine is unrelated. The city existed in pre-Arabic times named "Tingi".

tare (weight)

طرحة tarha, a discard (something discarded; from root tarah, to throw). The tare weight is defined in English as the weight of a package that's empty. To get the net weight of goods in a package, you weigh the goods in their package, which is the gross weight, and then discard the tare weight. Catalan tara dates from 1271, French tare 1311, Italian tara 1332, English tare 1380. The word is seen in Spanish around 1400 in the form atara, which helps affirm Arabic ancestry (the leading 'a' in atara is the vestige of the Arabic definite article). It is spelled tara in today's Spanish, Italian, German, and Russian.

tariff

تعريف taʿrīf, notification, specification (from ʿarraf, to notify). In late medieval Mediterranean commerce it meant a statement of inventory on a merchant ship (bill of lading) or any tabular statement of prices and products offered for sale. In use by Italian and Catalan merchants in the 14th century. Entered French and English in the 16th. Spanish tarifa is not on record before the late 17th.

tarragon (herb)

طرخون tarkhūn, tarragon. The word with that sense was used by the medical writers Al-Razi (died 930) and Ibn Sina (died 1037). It was used later in medieval Latin in a herbal medicine context spelled altarcon, tarchon and tragonia. Records for French targon, Italian tarcone, Spanish tarragoncia, English tarragon and German Tragon all start in the 16th century and in a culinary context.

tazza, demitasse

طاسة tāsa | طسّة tassa, round, shallow, drinking cup or bowl. The word has been in all the western Romance languages since the 13th and 14th centuries. It was common in Arabic for many centuries before that. English had it as tass in the 16th century, which continued much later in colloquial use in Scotland, but today's tazza and demitasse came from Italian and French in the 19th century.

tuna

التون al-tūn, tunafish. Ancient Greek and classical Latin thunnus = "tunafish" -> medieval Arabic al-tūn -> medieval Spanish atún -> American Spanish tuna -> American English tuna. Note: Modern Italian tonno, French thon, and English tunny, each meaning tuna, are descended from the classical Latin without an Arabic intermediary. . The Albacore species of tunafish got its name from 16th century Spanish & Portuguese albacora, which might be from Arabic, although there is no clear precedent in Arabic. . In the tuna family another commercial fish species whose name comes from Spanish is the Bonito. It is in Catalan as Bonítol in 1313. Some say the name may be a Spanish-ization of بينيث baynīth which is a sea fish in medieval Arabic general dictionaries (including Lisan al-Arab); others say the name's origin is obscure or may be from Spanish bonito = "pretty good".