Arabic

Words
in English
 “Commander of the
seas”, a title in use in
Arabic Sicily and
continued by the
Normans in Sicily in a
Latinized form, and

‫أمير البحار‬ 
adapted by Genoese
and French. Modern
French is “amiral”.
Insertion of the ‘d’ was
amīr al-bihār influenced by the
common Latin “to
admiral admire”.
 “The diver”, a type of
pelican or water-diving
bird. The Spanish
“alcatraz” has its
earliest record in 1386
as a type of pelican.

  ‫الغطّاس‬
“Alcatras” was in
English in the 16th
Century and borrowed
from the Spanish. The
al-ghattās insertion of the ‘b’ was
the Latinate “alba”,
albatross white.
 The Arabic entered
medieval Latin as
alchimia, in about 1140
in an Arab-Latin

  ‫الكيمياء‬ 
 
translation by Plato
Tiburtinus. The word
Chemistry is a 16th
Century European
al-kīmiyā derivation from this
word.
alchemy
 Finely powdered kohl
(stibnite). In Medieval
Latin the meaning
shifted to finely
grounded and sifted
material. In late

 
  ‫الكحل‬  
Medieval
became
Latin
purified
essence of this material
it

al-kohl which was arrived by

distillation methods.

alcohol
 Completing or
restoring broken
parts. The
mathematical sense
comes from the title of a
book, al-kitāb al-
mukhtaṣar f ī ḥisāb al-

  ‫الجبر‬
jabr wa al-muqābala, by
 
the 9th Century
mathematician al-
al-jabr Khwarizmi. It was
translated into Latin in

algebra the 12th century, thus

giving us the word.
 7 8 9
1 2 3 456 Short for the name of
0 the mathematician,
Muhammad ibn Mūsā
al-khwārizmī. The

‫الخوارزمي‬
 
Latinization of this

  name gave us the word

today, which simply
meant the Arabic
al-khwārizmī decimal number
system.
algorithm
 K
Li Rb
The word is taken from
Cs Fr Na qalā, which means to fry
a material derived

‫القلي‬
  from the ashes of

  plants. The earliest

record in the West is a
13th Century Latin
al-qali alchemy text.

alkali
 The Arabic word was
based on Byzantine
Greek and classical
Latin “praecoqua” which
  meant early ripening

  ‫البرقوق‬  
fruit. The Arabic passed
into the 14th Century
Portuguese
al-birqūq “albricocque”
Catalan “albercoc”.
and

apricot
 “A house of
manufacturing”. Ibn
Khaldoun quotes an
order of the Caliph
Abdalmelic to build at
Tunis a dār as sinā ‘a for
  the construction of

‫الصناعة‬
  ‫دار‬ everything necessary for
the equipment and
armament of seagoing
dār as sinā ‘a vessels. In Italian it
became the “darcenale”,

arsenal meaning the storage of

munitions.
 The word was used by
al-Razi (died 930). Early
Spanish “carchiofa”
(1423), Italian “carciofio”
  (1525) are close to the

 ‫الخرشوف‬ Arabic. In French it

became “artichault”.
Very little is known how
al-kharshūf it was corrupted.

artichoke
 This was the Arabic
nickname for the
Nizari branch of
Ismailism in the Levant
during the Crusades era.
This sect carried out
  killings on important

 ‫حشاشين‬  
chiefs of other sects
including Christians at
that time. The
hashāshīn conversion of the
nickname happened in

assassin Italian after

Crusades era.
the
 It came ultimately from
Sanskrit “vatin gana”.

 
 

 ‫الباذنجان‬  

al-bādhinjān
aubergine
 Known as “lazward”,
“lazurite” and “lapis
lazuli”, it is a rock with a
vivid blue colour. In
  turn from “Lajward”, the
   

  ‫الزورد‬
location of a large deposit
of lapis azuli in north-
 
eastern Afghanistan. The
lazward word today is used as a
colour.

azure
 Meaning “sugared”, the
Arabic word comes from
the Persian “qand” for
   
  cane sugar and possibly

  ‫قندي‬ Sanskrit before that,

since cane
developed in India.
sugar

qandi
candy
 A very small unit of
weight defined by
reference to a small seed
or grain. The medieval
   
Arabic word had an

  ‫قيراط‬ ancient
“keration”
“carob
Greek

seed”,
root
meaning
also
qīrāt denoting a small weight.

carat
 It came to Europe with
Arabic numerals.
Originally meaning zero,
   

  ‫صفر‬ 
then any numeral, then
numerically encoded
message.
sifr
cipher
 It entered the Romance
languages in the mid 12th
Century and English a
century later. It was
known to the ancient
    Romans but it was rare in

   ‫قطن‬  
Romance-speaking lands
until imports from the
Arab-speaking lands in
qutun the later medieval era at
lower prices.

cotton
 “The philosopher’s
stone”. The Arabs took to
word from the Greek
“xerion”, then added “al”
which had entered Arabic
    with the meaning of a

  ‫اإلكسير‬  
  healing powder for
wounds. The words
alchemy sense entered
al-’iksīr Latin in the 12th Century.

elixir
 Seen in Old Arabic
writings designating
various mammals,
including members of
the weasel family, the
    common feature of

    ‫فنك‬
   
mammals called “fenek”
was that their pelts were
used to make fur coats.
fenek 18th Century naturalists
adopted the word to
fennec designate the desert fox.
 It entered Latin in the
early 12th Century.

   

    ‫ل‬  ‫غزا‬   

ghazāl
gazelle
 There are four different
classes of rodents that are
native to desert or semi-
desert environments in
north Africa and Asia, not

    ‫يربوع‬
    found natively in Europe.

    
The nineteenth century
naturalists created this as a
Latin diminutive of the
yarbū’a word “jerboa”.

gerbil
 This entered the Italian
and French in the later
13th Century.

  ‫زرافة‬
   

   
zarāfa
giraffe
 “Women’s quarters” in a
large household. Arabic
word roots mean
“forbidden”, and thus a

 ‫حريم‬ 
    place where men were

  forbidden to go.

harīm
harem
 In Arabic it has the literal
meaning of “dried herb”
and “grass”. Its earliest
record in English is in the
1590s.

‫حشيش‬
   

     

hashīsh
hashish
 An earthen vase. First
records in English are in
1418 and 1421 as a
container for olive oil.
Spanish “jarra” has 13th
    Century records.

  ‫ة‬  ‫جر‬
ّjarra   

jar
 From Persian. Seen in a
13th Century Arabic-Latin
translation spelt
“jasiminum”.

‫ياسمين‬
      

     

yās(a)mīn
jasmine
 Resin used for
varnishing probably
originated from Persian
or Sanskrit for “iac” a
particular kind of resin
       used to make varnish.

   ‫لك‬ 
lakk
lacquer
 The cultivation of citrus
fruits was introduced to
the Mediterranean Basin
by the Arabs in the
Middle Ages.

 ‫ليمون‬
      

    

līmūn
lemon
 Originally from Persian
meaning “bluish”.

     
   

 
 ‫ليلك‬ 
līlak
lilac
 A back-formation or a
collective noun associated
with “līmūn”. Todays
word is also a colour-
name as well as a fruit. A
  
    lot of English colour-

   
 ‫ليمة‬  
names are descended
from Arabic words

līma
lime
 Storehouses. In the West
the meaning evolved to
arsenal, gunpowder store,
and a receptacle for
storing bullets
  
   

   
 ‫مخازن‬   

makhāzin
magazine
 A rug or large cushion.
In Arabic “something
thrown down” from the
root “tarah”, to throw. In
   the 13th and 14th Centuries

 ‫مطرح‬
   

       
in French and English it
would mean usually
padded under-blanket to
matrah lie upon.

mattress
 Referring to the wind off
rain 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

 ‫موسم‬ 
   sea-merchants were active
long before the
Portuguese arrived. It was
mawsim first used to mean season
– anything that comes
monsoon around once a year.
 Referring to the wind off
rain 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

 ‫طوفان‬
    
sea-merchants were active
long before. It meant big
rain storm, a deluge and
tūfān used in the Qu’ran for
Noah’s Flood.
typhoon
 Embalmed corpse.
Earlier, a bituminous
embalming substance,
from the Persian “mūm”,
wax
  
         

  ‫موميا‬ 
mūmiyā
mummy
 Fine cotton fabric made
in Mosul, in
Mesopotamia. The word
entered the West with
that meaning in the 16th

‫موصلي‬ 
  
         

  
Century. The fabric was
imported from Aleppo by
Venetians who called it
mūsili “mussolina”.

muslin
 The point of the sky.
“Nazīr” literally means
the complement or
counterpart to zenith.
          The Arabic “z” here is a

  
 ‫نظير‬  
difficult sound to produce
and came to be known as
“d” in Low Latin.
nazīr
nadir
 The Arabic descends from
Sanskrit “nāranga”. The
tree came from India.  

  ‫نارنج‬
         

    

nāranj
orange
 The Arabic word means
journey and came to
English through Swahili. 
  
         

 ‫سفر‬
   

safar
safari
 Fine cloth of various
colours but red most
common. The word form
“siqillāṭ”  or “sijillāṭ” was in
Arabic in the early 9th
Century onwards and came
   from a Late Classical Latin
         

 
 ‫سقيرالط‬   
and early medieval Greek
“sigillatus” meaning cloth
decorated with seals.
saqirlāt “Saqirlāt” came about in
1000, which was translated

scarlet in Latin as scarlata meaning

bright cloth. 
 A bench. The Arabic was
adopted into Turkish and
from Turkish it entered
Western Europe in the 16th
Century.
  
         

 ‫ة‬  ّ‫صف‬     

suffa
sofa
 “Isbinākh” in Andalusian
Arabic, and ‫ِإـسفـاناخ‬
“isfānākh” in eastern
classical Arabic, from the
Persian “aspanākh”. It was

‫سبناخ‬ِ‫إ‬
  
        the Arabs who introduced

  
    
this leafy vegetable into
 
Spain. 

isbinākh
spinach
 This came from the
Sanskrit, “sharkara”.
Among the earliest records
in English are those listed
in account books of an
  
        abbey in Durham: year 1302

 ‫سكّر‬ “Zuker Marok”.

sukkar
sugar
 Authority ruler. The first
ruler to use this as a formal
title was an Islamic Turkic-
speaking ruler in Central
Asia around the year 1000.
  
       

‫سلطان‬
   

soltān
sultan
 A word with two senses in
Arab meaning a “drink”
and a “syrup”. It was
passed into medieval Latin
in the 12th Century as
“siroppus”, a thickly

‫سلطان‬
           sweetened medicinal

   
potion. The same word
entered the West 400 years
later via Turkish as a
sharāb sweetened fruit drink.

syrup, sherbet, sorbet

 An alchemy word
common in medieval
Arabic and documented in
Latin around 1300 but not
common in the west until
   the 16th Century.
       

 ‫طلق‬  

talq
talc
 Used by Ali-Razi (died 930)
and Ibn Sina (died 1037).
Used later in medieval
Latin as a herbal
medicine. Might have
     been derived from ancient
       

 ‫طرخون‬  
Greek “drakon” (dragon).
The medieval Greeks
adopted the Arabic word.
tarkhūn
tarragon
 This derives from the
inaccurate reading of the
Arabic word meaning
“direction of the
head/path ahead”, by
Latin Medieval scribers

‫الرأس‬ ‫سمت‬
    
         

    during the 14th century.

samt al-ra’s
zenith
admiral albatross alchemy alcohol
algebra algorithm alkali apricot arsenal
artichoke assassin aubergine azure
candy carat cipher cotton elixir fennec
gazelle gerbil giraffe harem hashish jar
jasmine lacquer lemon lilac lime
magazine mattress monsoon typhoon
mummy muslin nadir orange safari
scarlet sofa spinach sugar sultan syrup
sherbet sorbet talc tarragon zenith zero