Palavras de Origem Árabe Dicionarizadas em Inglês e em Espanhol

Collatio 10 jan-mar 2012 

CEMOrOc-Feusp / IJI - Univ. do Porto 

Palavras de Origem Árabe Dicionarizadas 

em Inglês e em Espanhol 

- edição de um levantamento em midia eletrônica - 

69 

Jean Lauand 1 

Como uma ajuda para seminários, aulas e pesquisas filológicas (e 

sociológicas, filosóficas, políticas...) de professores e estudantes, oferecemos ao leitor 

a presente lista das 958 palavras que o OED - Oxford English Dictionary 2 apresenta 

sob a rubrica Arabic quando nele procuramos etimologias. Naturalmente, poucas são 

palavras que de fato aparecem no inglês quotidiano, mas esta listagem pode ser útil 

como guia de busca no excelente CD da Oxford University Press. No CD, o leitor 

encontrará também - em diversos casos - citações de emprego desses vocábulos: de 

autores antigos até contemporâneos. E, é claro, as definições de cada verbete. 

Por razões de espaço, limitamo-nos aos comentários de etimologia 3 . Como se 

poderá verificar, muitas das palabras dessa lista procedem do árabe e, em qualquer 

caso, têm pelo menos alguma relação etimológica con o árabe. Nosso propósito é 

primordialmente didático e pareceu-nos oportuno facilitar comparações ajuntando uma 

lista simples das 1285 palabras designadas como - de modo direto ou derivado - de 

origem árabe (árabe, hispánico, argelino, clásico, dialectal, marroquí, persa, vulgar) 

pelo Diccionario de la Real Academia (ed. electrónica Espasa Calpe 1995). 

Arabic em "Etymology Search" no OED 

aba, abba \Arab. `aba , . 

abada \a. Pg. abada, the female rhinoceros; (...) Cf. Arab. abadat... 

abaya \Arab. ‘abaya. 

Abelmosk \ad. mod.L. abelmoschus, ad. Arab. abu'l-misk father, i.e. source, of musk. 

Abkhaz \Prob. ad. Russ. abkhazskii, perh. ult. f. Arab.; the people's name for themselves is 

apshua. 

Abuna \Eth. and Arab. Abu-na, pater noster, our father. 

abutilon \mod.L. ad. Arab. aubutilun applied to this or an allied genus by Avicenna. 

acequia \Sp., ad. Arab. saqiah. 

acker \Prob. ad. Arab. fakka small change, coins; app. first among British and allied troops in 

Egypt. 

acton \a. OFr. (12th c.) auqueton, later (15th, 16th c.) hocqueton, hocton, (...); a. Sp. alcoton, 

algodon ‘cotton, bombast,’ ad. Arab. alqutun, al-qutn the cotton. Obsol. since 16th c. exc. as a 

historical term... 

adat \Malay, f. Arab. , ada custom, customary law. 

adeb \Arab. 

admiral \a. OFr., ad. Arab. directly, or through med.L. or some other Rom. lang. The Arabic 

amir commander, (f. amara, to command, order,) commonly Englished ameer, emir, occurs in 

1 . Prof. Titular FEUSP (aposentado) e do PPGE da Univ. Metodista de São Paulo. jeanlaua@usp.br 

2.OED2 -Oxford English Dictionary 2nd. ed. on CD-ROM, Oxford University Press 1994. Essa edição 

permitia a captação da listagem. 

3. Por nós recortados em alguns verbetes, o que é indicado por "(...)" no meio do verbete ou "..." no final. 

Adaptamos também o código de transliteração, nem sempre claro e unívoco, sobretudo quando se transforma o 

texto de OED en arquivo de extensão ".txt".

many titles followed by -al- ‘(of) the,’ as in amir-al-umara ruler of rulers, amir-al-ma 

commander of the water, amir-al-bahr, commander of the sea, the earliest of which is amir-almuminin 

commander of the faithful, assumed by the Caliph Omar, and Latinized in many 

forms by the early chroniclers (see Amirmumnes in Du Cange). As amir is constantly followed 

by -al- in all such title amir-al was naturally assumed by Christian writers as a substantive 

word, and variously Latinized as amir-alis, -allus, -alius, -arius, OFr. amiral, -ail, -aill, -ayl, Pr. 

amirau, amirar, amiralh, Pg. amiralh... 

adobe \Sp.; f. adob-ar to daub, to plaster:–late L. adobare; see adub. (Dozy derives the Sp. 

from Arab. at-tob, = al-tob, prob. a Coptic tob... 

afreet, afrit, afrite \Arab. 'ifrit. 

agal \Arab. ‘iqal bond, rope. 

Aladdin \The name of the hero of Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp, a story from the Arabian 

Nights, subsequently popular as a pantomime, ad. Arab. ‘Ala 'al Din, lit. ‘nobility of faith’... 

albacore \a. Pg. albacor, -bacora, -becora (Sp. albacora, Fr. albicore); f. Arab. al the + bukr, pl. 

bakarat, a young camel, a heifer, whence also Pg. bacoro a young pig... 

alborak \Arab. al-buraq the splendid, lightning-flashing, f. baraqa to flash, lighten. 

alcalde \Sp., ad. Arab. al-qadi the judge... 

alcanna, alcana \a. Sp. alcana, alcaña, a. Arab. al-henna, name of the shrub... 

alcarraza \Sp., ad. Arab. al-kurraz = al the + kurraz pitcher. 

alcatras, -ace -ash \a. Sp., Pg. alcatraz, probably (as shown by Devic) a variant of Pg. alcatruz 

the bucket of a ‘noria,’ or water-raising wheel for irrigation, in Sp. arcaduz, alcaduz, a. Arab. 

al-qadus... 

alcavala \Sp. alcabala, alcavala, ad. Arab. al-qabalah the tax, impost, f. qabala to receive. 

alcayde \Sp. alcaide, formerly alcayde, the captain of a castle, ad. Arab. al-qa‘id the leader, f. 

qada to lead. 

alcazar \Sp., a fortress, a castle, ad. Arab. al-qaçr = al the + qaçr in pl. a castle. 

alchemy \a. OFr. alquimie, -emie, -kemie, -camie (also ar-), ad. med.L. alchimia (Pr. alkimia, 

Sp. alquimia, It. alchimia), a. Arab. al-kimia, i.e. al the + kimia, apparently a. Gr. khemía, 

found (c. 300) in the Decree of Diocletian against ‘the old writings of the Egyptians, which 

treat of the khemía (transmutation) of gold and silver’... 

alchitran, alkitran \a. OFr. alketran, alquitran, a. Sp. alquitran, Pg. alcatrão (med.L. 

alquitranum, alchitrum, It. catrame, mod.Fr. goudran, -on), ad. Arab. al-qatran or al-qitran, the 

resin of fir-trees, pitch, tar; f. qatara to drop. 

alcohol \a. med.L. alcohol, ad. Arab. al-koh'l ‘collyrium,’ the fine powder used to stain the 

eyelids, f. kahala, Heb. kakhal to stain, paint: see Ezekiel xxiii. 40... 

alconde \Sp. alconde, comb. of Arabic al the + Sp. conde count, earl:–L. comitem... 

Alcoran \a. (immed. from Fr. alcoran) Arab. al-qoran, the recitation, reading, f. qara‘a to 

recite, read. 

alcornoco, alcornoque \Sp. alcornoque, f. Arab. al the + quern oco spongy oak (Diez). 

alcove \a. Fr. alcôve, ad. Sp. Pg. alcova, alcoba, ad. Arab. al-qobbah, i.e. al the + qobbah a 

vault, a vaulted chamber; f. qubba to vault. 

aldea, aldee \Pg. aldea (Fr. aldée), ad. Arab. al-day , a the farm, village. 

alembic \a. Fr. alambic, ad. (ultimately) Arab. al-anbiq, i.e. al the + anbiq a still; ad. Gr. ambik 

a cup, beaker, the cap of a still... 

alezan \Fr., ad. Sp. alazan, of doubtful origin; accord. to Devic, f. Arab. al the + hals-a fem. of 

ahlas a bay horse. 

alfalfa \Sp. alfalfa ‘three-leaved grasse, clovers grasse’ (Minsheu), formerly alfalfez, identified 

by Pedro de Alcalá with Arab. alfaçfaçah ‘the best sort of fodder,’ Freytag. 

alfaqui \Sp. alfaquí, ad. Arab. al-faqih, i.e. al the + faqih one skilled in divine things, f. faqiha 

to be wise. 

alferes \a. OSp. and Pg. alféres (mod.Sp. alférez) ensign, ad. Arab. al-faris cavalier or knight, f. 

faras horse. Often made pl., with sing. alfere -a -o; cf. Fr. alfier, It. alfiere. (In later Sp. and It. 

also confused with alfir, see alfin, as name of the bishop in chess.) 

alfin, alphin \a. OFr. alfin, aufin (med.L. alphinus, It. alfino, alfido), f. Sp. alfil (arfil), Pg. alfil 

(alfir), a. Arab. al-fil the elephant, Skr. pilu; the piece in chess called the alphin, and now the 

bishop, having had originally with the Indians, Chinese, and Persians the figure and name of an 

elephant. 

alforge, alforja \Pg. alforge, Sp. alforja, according to Diez, ad. Arab. al-khorj the store, supply, 

provision, f. kharaja to proceed. 

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alfridary \Of obsc. orig.; cf. Arab. farada, ‘cernere,’ to cut into, define, decree, also to define 

beforehand a time, to fix on an hour; whence fariydah, n. a fixed and defined part... 

Alfur \ad. Pg. alfuori ‘the outsider,’ f. Arab. al the + fuori outside:–L. foribus out of door, fores 

doors. (R.N. Cust.) 

algarad \a. Fr. algarade, ad. Sp. algarada ‘a sudden assault with a great crie’ (Minsheu); f. 

med.L., Pg. and ? Sp. algara a raid (a. Arab. al-gharah, i.e. al the, gharah raid) + -ada. 

algarroba \Sp. algarroba, ad. Arab. al-kharrubah, applied to the same. 

algebra \a. (...) (also Sp. and med.L.), ad. Arab. al-jebr the redintegration or reunion of broken 

parts, f. jabara to reunite, redintegrate, consolidate, restore; hence, the surgical treatment of 

fractures, bone-setting. Also in phr. , ilm al-jebr wa'l-muqabalah, i.e. ‘the science of 

redintegration and equation (opposition, comparison, collation),’ the Arabic name for algebraic 

computation. In this sense the first part of the Arabic title was taken into It. in 1202, as algèbra; 

the second part, almucabala, was used by some med.L. writers in the same sense. The 16th c. 

Eng. algeber (fancifully identified by early writers with the name of the Arabic chemist Geber) 

was either taken directly from Arab. or from Fr. algèbre; but the It. algèbra became the accepted 

form (accented 'algebra by 1663). 

Algol \ad. Arab. al ghul (see ghoul). 

algorism \a. OFr. augorisme, algorisme, augorime; ad. med.L. algorism-us (cf. Sp. gua-rismo 

cipher), f. Arab. al-Khowarazmi, the native of Khwarazm (Khiva), surname of the Arab 

mathematician Abu Ja'far Mohammed Ben Musa, who flourished early in the 9th c., and 

through the translation of whose work on Algebra, the Arabic numerals became generally 

known in Europe.(...) Algorisme being popularly reduced in OFr. to augori-me, English also 

shows two forms, the popular augrime, ending in agrim, agrum, and the learned algorism 

which passed through many pseudo-etymological perversions, in-cluding a recent algorithm in 

which it is learnedly confused with Gr. arithmós, ‘number.’ 

alguazil \Sp. alguazil (now alguacil), earlier forms of which in Pg. are al-vazil, al-vazir, ad. 

Arab. al-wazir, i.e. al the, wazir minister, officer, f. wazara to carry, carry on, = L. gerere. 

Alhagi \mod.L. (Rauwolf 1537), ad. Arab. al-haj, used by Avicenna. 

Alhaji \a. Hausa, ad. Arab.: see prec. 

Al-Haj(j) \a. Arab. al-hajj: see al-2 and hadji. 

Alhambra \ult. ad. Arab. alhamra‘ i.e. the red (house). 

alhandal \a. Arab. al-handal. 

alidad(e) \In mod. form, a. Fr. alidade, in earlier, a. med.L. alhidada (cf. Sp. alhidada, alidada), 

ad. Arab. al- , idadah, the revolving radius of a graduated circle; f. , add, , adid, , adud, the 

humerus or upper arm (which revolves in its socket). 

Alizari \Fr. and Sp., according to Devic, prob. ad. Arab. al the + , açarah juice pressed out, 

extract, f. , açara to press, extract... 

alkahest \first used in med.L. by Paracelsus, and believed to have been arbitrarily invented by 

him with a form simulating Arabic. Used in the same forms in most of the European languages. 

alkali \a. Fr. alcali, ad. (ultimately) Arab. al-qaliy, the ‘calcined ashes’ of the plants Salsola 

and Salicornia, f. qalay to fry, roast in a pan; hence transferred to the plants themselves so 

employed. 

alkedavy \ad. (perh. indirectly) Arab. al-qadawi, i.e. al the + qadawi of the cadi or alcalde (sc. 

alqaçr the palace). 

alkekengi \med.L. alkekengi f. Arab. al-kakanj, al-kakenj, i.e. al the + Pers. kakanj a ‘kind of 

medicinal resin from a tree growing in the mountains of Herat.’ Freytag. ‘Nightshade,’ 

Hopkins Pers. Dict. Cf. It. alcachengi, Sp. alquequenje... 

alkermes \a. Fr. alkermès ad. (ult.) Arab. al-qirmiz, i.e. al the + qirmiz kermes. 

Allah \a. Arab. allah the (true) God, contr. of al-ilah, i.e. al the + ilah god = Aram. elah, Heb. 

eloah. 

alma, almah \a. Arab. , almah, adj. fem. ‘learned, knowing’; f. , alama ‘to know’ (because they 

have been instructed in music and dancing). Cf. Fr. almée. 

almaçour, ur \a. OFr. almaçor, -ur, aumaçor, also aumansour, ad. (perh. indirectly) Arab. almançur, 

the (heaven-) defended, the august, f. naçara to defend. 

almadia \ad. Arab. al-ma , diyah a ferry-boat, f. , aday to cross; cf. It. almadia, Fr. almadie (also 

used in Eng.). 

almagest \a. OFr. almageste, ad. (ult.) Arab. al-majisti, ad. (with article al the) Gr. megíste 

greatest (sc. syntaxis, composition); applied by the Arabs (and previously, it is inferred, in the 

71

Greek schools of Alexandria) to the great treatise of Ptolemy, Mathematiké syntaxis, in 

contradistinction to the elementary works studied before it. 

almagra \a. Sp. almagra, almagre, a. Arab. al-maghrah red ochre. 

almanac \Appears in med.L. as almanac(h in end of 13th c., and soon after (though it may 

have been earlier) in most of the Rom. langs., It. almanacco, Sp. almanaque, Fr. almanach, the 

immediate source of which was app. a Spanish Arabic al-manakh; Pedro de Alcala, in his 

Arabic-Castilian Vocabulista (1505), has ‘manakh, almanaque, calendario’; also ‘manah 

(probably meant for same word), relox del sol’ [sundial]. But the word occurs nowhere else as 

Arabic, has no etymon in the language, and its origin is uncertain. 

almond \a. OFr. almande, alemande, earlier alemandre, alemandle (also amande, amandre); cf. 

Sp. almendra, Pg. amendoa, It. mandorla, mandola, Pr. and med.L. amandola; pointing to early 

Romanic amendla, -ola, -ala, from L. amygdala, a. Gr. amygdále... 

almucantar \a. Fr. almicantarat or almucantarat, also med.L. almi-, almucantarath; ad. Arab. 

almuqantarat, pl. (with article) of muqantarah (cited by Golius in sense of ‘sundial’), deriv. of 

qantarah, a bridge, an arch. 

almury \a. (ult.) Arab. al-mur‘i, i.e. al the + mur‘i indicator, agent-noun f. 4th form of ra‘ay to 

see. 

almuten \Corrupt for almutaz (so in OFr.) a. Arab. al-mu , taz, i.e. al the + mu , taz prevailing, f. 

8th form of , azz to be powerful. 

alnath \Arab. al-nath from nataha to butt, aim at with the horns. 

alpaca \a. Sp. alpaca or al-paco, f. al Arab. article often prefixed to names + paco, prob. a 

native Peruvian name. 

alphenic \a. Fr. alphenic (Sp. alfeñique, Pg. alfenim), according to Devic, corrupted from 

Arab. alfanid, i.e. al the + Pers. fanid refined sugar... 

altincar \a. (ult.) Arab. al-tinkar (...) 

aludel \a. Fr. aludel, in 13th c. alutel, ad. Arab. al-uthal (quoted by Dozy with this sense in 9th 

c.), i.e. al the + uthal, prob. variant of ithal pl. of athla utensil, apparatus. 

Amal \a. Arab. amal hope; in full Harakat al-Amal Movement of Hope. Also said to represent 

an acronym (as unvocalized ‘ml) of afwaj al-muqawama al-Lubnaniyya detachments of the 

resistance of the Lebanese. 

amalgam \a. Fr. amalgame (15th c. in Litt.), and, in the formerly common amalgama, of 

med.L., in which the word was in regular alchemical use in 13th c. Usually taken as a 

perversion of L. malagma (in Pliny and the physicians) a mollifying poultice or plaster, a. Gr. 

málagma (...) an emollient; or of an Arabic adaptation of málagma with prefixed al- (as in alchemy, 

al-embic, etc.)... 

amber \a. Fr. ambre, cogn. w. Pr. ambre, Pr. and It. ambra, Sp. ambar, med.L. ambar, -are, -er, 

-ra, -rum, a. Arab. , anbar, ‘ambergris,’ to which the name orig. belonged; after-wards extended, 

through some confusion of the substances, to the fossil resin ‘amber.’... 

ameer \a. Arab. (Pers. and Urdu) amir commander, f. amara to tell, order, command. As a 

historical Saracen title commonly spelt emir; the spelling amír, ameer, is used of modern 

Indian and Afghan rulers. 

amice \ad. OFr. aumuce, aumusse (Pr. almussa, med.L. almussa, almussia, almucia, almucium, 

Sp. almucio, Pg. mursa, It. mozzetta dim. of mozza), of doubtful origin, but generally taken as 

ad. Ger. mutse, mütze, cap (Sc. mutch), with Arab. article al- prefixed, as in some other non- 

Arabic technical words. 

amildar \a. Pers. and Urdu , amal-dar, f. Arab. , amal work + Pers. dar holding, holder (a 

common agential formative). 

amulet \perh. in 15th c., a. Fr. amulette; but app. not in reg. use till after 1600, when adapted 

from L. amuletum (Pliny), a word of unknown origin, which has been conjecturally compared 

with mod.Arab. himalah, -at, lit. ‘a carrier, bearer,’ now applied inter alia to a shoulder-belt or 

cord frequently used to secure a small Koran or prayer-book on the breast, regarded as an 

‘amulet’; but the history of this word shows that the resemblance between it and L. amuletum 

is purely fortuitous, and there exists no ground for ascribing the latter to an Arabic origin. 

anatron \a. Sp. anatron, ad. Arab. an-natarûn, i.e. an = al the + natrûn. 

anil \a. Fr. or Pg. anil = Sp. añil, ad. Arab. an-nil, i.e. al the + nil, Arab. and Pers. ad. Skr. nili 

indigo (and -plant), f. nila dark blue. 

72

ante \a. Sp. ante, also dante, ad. Arab. lamt, some animal of the antelope or buffalo kind, ‘el 

Dante, que los Affricanos llaman Lamt’ (Marmol, in Dozy). Its skin is called in Arab. addaraca 

lamt, corrupt. in Sp. adaraga dante, adarga de ante, whence dante, ante, for the animal. 

antimony \ad. med.L. antimonium, of unknown origin, used by Constantinus Africanus of 

Salerno (Chaucer's ‘cursed monk, daun Constantyn,’ Merch. T. 566), in end of 11th c., whence 

also in all the mod. langs. Prob., like other terms of alchemy, a corruption of some Arabic 

word, refashioned so as to wear a Gr. or L. aspect–perhaps, as has been suggested, of the 

Arabic name uthmud, othmod, itself, latinized as athimodium, atimodium, atimonium, 

antimonium... 

apricot \orig. ad. Pg. albricoque or Sp. albaricoque, but subseq. assimilated to the cognate F. 

abricot (t mute). Cf. also It. albercocca, albicocca, OSp. albarcoque, a. Sp. Arab. al-borcoq(ue 

(P. de Alcala) for Arab. al-burquq, -birquq, i.e. al the + birquq... 

araba \a. Arab. and Pers. arabah, a wheeled carriage. 

Arabdom \f. Arab n. + -dom. 

Arabic \a. OF. Arabic (13th c. in Litt.), ad. L. Arabicus. 

Arabical \f. Arabic a. + -al1. 

Arabican \f. Arabic + -an; cf. OF. arabican(t (Godefroy). 

Arabicism \f. Arabic + -ism; cf. anglicism. 

Arabism \mod. f. Arab + -ism; cf. F. arabisme. 

Arabize \f. Arab + -ize. 

Araby \a. OF. arabi, arrabi, Arabian, an Arab, Arab horse. 

archegay \a. F. archegaie, archigaie, variant of arcigaye (...) Sp. azagaya, a. Arab. azzaghayah, 

i.e. al the + zaghayah, Berber name of a javelin or dart: now called in Eng. (from 

Pg.) assagai, assegai... 

ardeb \Arab. irdab, urdab. 

argan \a. Arab. arjan, in Barbary pronounced argan. 

argel \ad. Arab. harjil (Sharaf Dict. Med.). 

ariel \a. Arab. aryil (var. of ayyil stag), applied in Syria to the Gazelle (Dozy). 

arrack \Ultimately Arab., , araq sweat, juice, esp. in , araq at-tamr the (fermented) juice of the 

date... 

arroba \Sp., ad. Arab. ar-rub , ‘the quarter,’ the weight being a quarter of the Spanish quintal... 

arsenal \ (...) The original is the Arab. dar aççina , ah, workshop, factory (i.e. dar house, place 

of, al the, çina , ah, art, mechanical industry, f. çana , a to make, fabricate), which is directly 

represented by the Romance darsena, taracena; atarazana is prob. a Sp. Arab. form with article 

al-, ad- ... 

artichoke \ad. north. It. articiocco (...) ad. or cogn. w. OSp. alcarchofa (mod. alcachofa, Pg. 

alcachofra), a. Sp. Arab. al-kharshofa (P. de Alcala) = Arab. al-kharshuf... 

Askar \Arabic, , askar army. 

Askari \Arabic , askari soldier. 

assagai \a. F. azagaye (Cotgr.), or Pg. azagaia, Sp. azagaya, a. Arab. az-zaghayah, i.e. az-= al- 

the, zaghayah native Berber word, adopted in Arabic, and thence in Sp. and Pg.; adopted from 

the Portuguese in Africa by the English and French. 

assassin \a. (...) Pg. assassino, Sp. asesino, med.L. assassinus (...); med.L. (pl.) assessini, 

ascisini, etc.), ad. Arab. hashshashin and hashishiyyin, pl. of hashshash and hashishiyy, lit. ‘a 

hashish-eater, one addicted to hashish,’ both forms being applied in Arabic to the Isma , ili 

sectarians, who used to intoxicate themselves with hashish or hemp, when preparing to 

dispatch some king or public man... 

assogue \a. F. assogue (in same sense), a. Sp. azogue, Pg. azougue, quicksilver, ad. Sp. Arab. 

az-zaouga (P. de Alcala) = Arab. az-zauq, i.e. az = al the, zauq, ad. Pers. zhiwah quicksilver. 

atabal \a. Sp. atabal, a. Arab. at-tabl, i.e. al the, tabl a drum. 

athanor \ad. Arab. attannur, i.e. at = al the, tannur furnace... 

atlas \a. (ultimately) Arab. atlas ‘smooth, bare,’ thence ‘smooth silk cloth,’ f. talasa to rub 

smooth, delete... 

attar \a. Pers. , atar perfume essence, , atar-gul essence of roses, ad. Arab. , itr, pl. , utur, , otor, 

aroma, f. , atara to breathe perfume. 

auge \a. OF. auge (also in It. and Sp.), a. Arab. awj, ‘height, top, summit, higher apsis of sun or 

planet. 

73

aumil \Urdu (prop. Arab.) , amil, operator, agent, spec. ‘revenue-collector,’ agent-noun f. Arab. 

, amala to act, perform an office. 

avania \ In common use in the Levant, but of uncertain language and origin; (...) Arab. and 

Turk. awani, also found as awari (Devic), and in Bocthor , awan, and , awania... 

avives \a. F. avives (also vives), a. Sp. avivas, adivas, ad. Arab. az-zibah, with same meaning, 

lit. al-, the, zibah she-wolf. 

ayatollah \a. Pers., ad. Arab. ‘ayatu-llah miraculous sign of God. 

Azan \Arab. adan invitation. 

azarole \a. F. azerole (written by Tournefort azarole), cogn. with Sp. acerolo, azarolla (...), ad. 

Arab. az-zu , rur, applied to the same fruit. 

azimuth \a. F. azimut, cogn. with It. azzimutto, Pg. azimuth, ad. Arab. as-sumut, i.e. as = al the 

+ sumut, pl of samt way, direction, a direction or point of the compass or horizon, and the arc 

extending from it to the zenith... 

azoth \Corruption (ultimately) of Arab. az-zauq: see assogue. Cf. F. azoth, Sp. azogue. 

azure \a. OF. azur, asur (11th c.), cogn. with Pr., OSp. azur, Pg., Sp. azul (...), adaptations of 

Arabic (al-)lazward, a. Pers. lajward, lazhward, lapis lazuli, blue colour. 

Baath \ad. Arab. ba , th resurrection, renaissance. 

babouche \a. F. babouche (cf. Sp. babucha), a. Arab. babush, ad. Pers. paposh a slipper... 

badmash \Pers. and Urdu, f. Pers. bad evil + Arab. ma , ash means of livelihood. 

bahar \Arab., bahar. 

baksheesh \Pers. bakhshish present, f. bakhshi-dan to give; now used in Arabic, Turkish, and 

Urdu. 

balas \a. OF. balais, balai, cogn. with (...) Sp. balax, med.L. balascus (Marco Polo), balascius, - 

asius, ad. Arab. balakhsh, f. Pers. Badakhshan, the district near Sarmacand where they are 

found. 

banian \a. Pg. banian, prob. a. Arab. banyan (16th c.)... 

Barbary \I. a. OF. barbarie, ad. L. barbaria, barbaries, ‘land of barbarians, barbarism,’ f. 

barbar-us barbarous. In II. ult f. Arab. Barbar, Berber, applied by the Arab geographers from 

ancient times to the natives of N. Africa, west and south of Egypt. According to some native 

lexicographers, of native origin, f. Arab. barbara ‘to talk noisily and con-fusedly’ (which is not 

derived from Gr. bárbaros); according to others, a foreign word... 

barberry \ad. med.L. barbaris (in Promp. Parv.), berberis, F. berberis, 16th c. berbere, Sp. 

berberis, It. berberi, of unknown origin and history. (An Arabic barbaris, sometimes cited, is a 

transcription of the Latin employed by Arabian botanists ...). 

barbican \a. F. barbacane, in 12th c. barbaquenne (= Pr., Sp. barbacana, Pg. barbacão, It. 

barbacane), of uncertain origin, perh. from Arab. or Pers... 

bard \a. F. barde horse-armour, also ‘a long saddle for an ass or mule of canvas’ (Cotgr.); cf. 

It. barda horse-armour, also pack-saddle, and F. bardelle pack-saddle. These, and the existence 

of a dial. F. aubarde, seem to identify the word with Sp. and Pg. albarda pack-saddle, referred 

by Devic to Arab. al-barda , ah, i.e. al the + barda , ah ‘stuffed pack-saddle for ass or mule’... 

bardash \a. F. bardache, cogn. with It. bardascia, Sp. bardajo, -axo; perh. ad. Arab. bardaj 

slave. 

baroque \a. F. baroque adj., ad. Pg. barroco, Sp. barrueco, rough or imperfect pearl; of 

uncertain origin. (...) Pg. has besides barroco ‘rough or Scotch pearl,’ barroca ‘a gutter made by 

a water-flood’ Vieyra, ‘uneven stony ground’ (Diez), which native etymologists refer to Arab. 

buraq, pl. of burqah ‘hard earth mixed with stones, pebbly place’ (Freytag). 

barracan \a. F. barracan, baragant (Cotgr.), mod. bouracan (= Pr. barracan, It. baracane, Sp. 

barragan, Pg. barregana), a. Arab. barrakan, or burrukan (Dozy), camlet, a cloak of camlet, f. 

Pers. barak ‘a blanket or garment of camel's hair. 

barrack \a. F. baraque, ad. It. baracca or Sp. barraca ‘a souldier's tent, or a booth, or such like 

thing made of the sayle of a shippe, or such like stuffe’ (Minsheu 1617). Of uncertain origin: 

Diez thinks from barra bar, comparing, for the form, trab-acca from trab-s beam. Others have 

tried to find an Arabic or Celtic source. 

basan \a. F. basane, (Cotgr. bazane, Palsgr. basanne), prob. ad. Pr. bazana, a. Sp. badana 

(med.L. bedana), ad. Arab. bitanah, lining, ‘inside’. 

bausond \a. OF. bausant (...) a word of doubtful form and etymology (...) Conjectures (...) in 

Devic (Littré, Suppl.) who has pointed out the striking identity of meaning between bausant 

74

and Arab. ablaq, fem. balqa; but notwithstanding this, the forms of the Arabic and Romanic 

words cannot (at present at least) be phonetically reconciled.) 

bedeguar \a. F. bédeguar, bédegar, ad. ult. Pers. (and Arab.) badawar, -ard, lit. ‘wind-brought,’ 

according to the Burhani Kati ‘a thorny bush with a white flower, resembling the thistle , . 

Bedouin \a. F. bedouin, 12th c. OF. li bedowin (pl.), 13th c. beduins, beduyn (sing.), a. Arab. 

badawin, pl. of badawiy or badawiy a dweller in the desert, f. badw desert. First known to 

Europeans in Crusading times. The plural, being of most frequent use, was adapted in med.L. 

as beduini, bedewini... 

Bedu \Arab. badw desert, Bedouins, badawi Bedouin: see Bedouin. 

behen \a. med.L. behen (found in other mod. langs.), app. corruption of Arab. bahman, 

behmen, a kind of root, also a dog-rose. 

bejel \Arab. 

belleric \a. F. belléric, more correctly belliric, ad. (ultimately) Arab. balilaj, f. Pers. balilah. 

ben \a. Arab. ban, ‘the ben-tree’ (Lane)... 

benzoin \In 16th c. benjoin, a. F. benjoin (also benjaoy, quoted by Devic from Déterville Dict. 

Hist. Nat. 1816), repr. Sp. benjui, benjuy (Barbosa 1516), Pg. beijoim (Vasco da Gama 1498) 

(...) a. Arab. luban jawi ‘frankincense of Jawa’ (Sumatra), by which name benzoin is called by 

Ibn Batuta c1350 (ed. Paris IV. 228)... 

Berberine \prop. pl. used as sing., f. berber + Arab. pl. suffix -in (cf. fellaheen, pl. of fellah). 

beryl \a. OF. beryl, beril:–L. beryllus (...) prob. a foreign word; identified by Weber with Skr. 

vaidurya. Cf. also Arab. and Pers. ballur crystal. 

Betelgeuse \Fr. Bételgeuse, f. Arab. 

bezoar \Like mod.L. bezahar, bezaar, bezoar (bezardicum, lapis bezoarticus), Sp. bezaar, 

bezar, bezoar, F. bezahar, bezar, bezoar, bezoard, ad. Arab. bazahr or badizahr, ad. Per. padzahr 

counter-poison, antidote, bezoar stone; f. zahr poison. 

bhang \A word widely spread in Eastern langs.: in Urdu, and various Indian langs., bhang, 

bhang, bhung; in Pers., bang (whence Arab. banj, benj). 

bilk \Of uncertain origin (...). Blount's assertion that the word is Arabic is altogether 

erroneous... 

bint \Arab. bint daughter. 

bismillah \Arab. bi-'sm-illah (‘in the name of God.’) 

bled \Fr., f. colloq. Arab. bled, representing (depending on context) balad vast stretch of 

country or bilad land, country. 

Blighty \Contracted form, originating in the Indian army, of Hind. bilayati = wilayati foreign, 

and esp. European, f. wilayat prop. Arabic, inhabited country, dominion, district, vilayet, in 

Hind. esp. foreign country (cf. Arab. wali governor of a province, vali, wali). 

Bohairic \f. Bohairah, Bahirah (Boheira, Beherah), the Arabic name of Lower Egypt (Arab. 

buhaira lake). 

bonduc \a. F. bonduc, a. Arab. bunduq, now meaning ‘hazel-nut’, but formerly a foreign nut of 

some kind; prob. from Persian... 

bonito \a. Sp. bonito, of doubtful origin: bonito adj. ‘pretty good, pretty’ is a native Sp. word; 

but the Sp. Academy derive the name of the fish from an Arabic bainith, which looks like an 

adaptation of the Spanish. 

borax \ME. bo'ras, a. OF. boras (...), a. Arab. variously pronounced bauraq, buraq, boraq, prop. 

‘natron’, but also ‘borax’: referred by the lexicons to the Arab. bwrq to glisten, but prob. ad. 

Pers. burah borax... 

botargo \a. It. botargo, botarga (now buttarga), ad. Arab. butarkhah ‘preserved mullet-roe’, in 

Makrizi a.d. 1400 (in pl. butarikh, whence It. var. bottarica)... 

bougie \a. F. bougie wax candle, from Bougie (Arab. Bijiyah), a town in Algeria which carried 

on a trade in wax. 

Brazil \? a. Sp. (also Pg.) brasil or It. brasile; corresp. to F. brésil, Pr. bresil, brezilh, in OF. 

berzi, bresis, OIt. verzino, in med.L. ? brezellum, brasilium, bresillum, braxile: of unknown 

origin; perh. a corruption of an oriental name of the dye-wood originally so called. On the 

discovery of an allied species, also yielding a dye, in South America, the territory where it 

grew was called terra de brasil, ‘red-dye-wood land’, afterwards abbreviated to Brasil ‘Brazil’. 

Brazil-wood was thus not named from the country, but the converse was the case. Formerly 

pronounced in Eng. 'brazil, as shown by rimes and spellings. Conjectural etymologies are F. 

briser to break, brésiller to crumble (as if the wood arrived in a broken state); also F. braise, Sp. 

75

asa ‘glowing coal’ (from its colour); also Arab. wars saffron, in some parts perhaps 

pronounced vars, vers (cf. It. verzino). See Diez, Littré. 

brinjal \Anglo-Indian adaptation of Pg. bringella, bringiela, earlier beringela = Sp. berengena, 

al-berengena, ad. Arabic (al)-badhinjan... 

buckram \Found in most of the European langs. between 12th and 15th c.; cf. OF. boquerant 

(12th c.), (...) Pr. bocaran, Cat. bocaram (Diez), Sp. bucaran, It. bucherame (in Boccaccio 14th 

c.). Reiske (in Constantin. Porphyrog. ed. Niebuhr II. 530) proposes Arab. abu qiram ‘pannus 

cum intextis figuris’, but he does not say where he found this compound; the simple qiram is of 

doubtful meaning... 

bulbul \a. (through Pers.) Arab. bulbul. 

bunk \Cf. bunk ‘nascaptha, an odoriferous root’, given as Arabic in Johnson's Pers.-Ar.-Eng. 

Dict., 1852; not in Freytag or Lane. 

burgoo \ad. Arab. burghul cooked, parched, and crushed wheat, ultimately ad. Turk. bulgur: 

see bulgur, burg(h)ul. 

burka \Hind. (from Arabic) burqa‘. 

burnous \a. F. burnous, a. Arab. burnus. 

buskin \A word existing in many European langs.: known in Eng. since 16th c. Cf. Fr. 

brousequin (16th c.), early mod.Du. brozeken (now broosken), Sp. borceguí, formerly also 

boszegui, Pg. borzeguim (Dozy cites as earlier forms morsequill, mosequin) (...) The 

appearance of the Sp. and Pg. words suggests an oriental origin, but the Arabic etymology 

proposed by Dozy is far-fetched and untenable. 

byssus \a. L. byssus, (...) ad. Heb. buts, applied to ‘the finest and most precious stuffs, as worn 

by kings, priests, and persons of high rank or honour’ (Gesenius), transl. in Bible of 1611 ‘fine 

linen’, f. root buts, Arab. bad to be white, to surpass in whiteness. Originally therefore a fibre 

or fabric distinguished for its whiteness. 

Caaba \Arab. ka , bah square (or cubical) house. 

cabaan \a. Arab. and Pers. qaba , a man's outer tunic. 

cabeer \Arab. kabir, lit. ‘big, gros’. 

cabob \Arab. kabab (also in Pers. and Urdu), in same sense. 

cadi \a. Arab. qadi judge, f. qada(y to judge. (Whence, with al-, Sp. alcalde.) 

cafard \F. cafard, caphard, of doubtful origin: some have proposed to identify it with Cat. cafre 

infidel, Sp., Pg. cafre cruel, which are app. ad. Arab. kafir... 

cafre \ad. Arab. kafir infidel, impious wretch, one who does not recognize the blessings of 

God, f. kafara to cover up, conceal, deny. 

cafila \Arab. qafilah caravan, marching company. 

calabash \a. F. calebasse, calabace, Cotgr.) ad. Sp. calabaça, calabaza gourd, pumpkin (...). 

The ultimate source was perh. the Persian kharbuz, or kharbuza, also kharpuza, and kharbuza, 

‘melon’, generally ‘marsh-melon’, occasionally ‘water-melon’, whence Arabic khirbiz 

‘melon’, and kirbiz ‘pumpkin, gourd (...). 

calfret \ad. F. calfrete-r (Cotgr.), calfater, calfeutrer to caulk (a ship). The word occurs also as 

It. calafatare, Sp. calafatear, -fetear; usually believed to be f. Arab. qalafa, in 2nd conjugation 

qallafa to caulk a ship with palm-tree fibre... 

calibre \a. F. calibre (qualibre in Cotgr. 1611) = It. calibro, Sp. calibre (OSp. also calibo, Diez) 

of uncertain origin; the Arab. qalib ‘mould for casting metal’, or some cognate derivative of 

qalaba to turn, has been suggested as the source. 

calico \In 1617th c. also calicut, from the name of the Indian city (sense 1) (...) in Ara-bic 

Qaliqut, med.L. (Conti) Collicuthia, Pg. Qualecut (V. de Gama), Calecut (Camoens). 

calin \Fr.: a. Pg. calaim, a. Arab. qala , i; the ultimate derivation is disputed. 

caliph \ME. califfe, caliphe, etc., a. F. caliphe, calife, ad. med.L. calipha, ad. Arab. kha-lifah, 

successor (f. khalafa to succeed, be behind), assumed by Abu-bekr after the death of 

Muhammad. Later forms attach themselves more directly to the Arabic: orientalists now favour 

Khalîf... 

camaca \a. OF. camocas (kamoukas in Froissart) ‘silk stuff approaching satin’ (Godef.), or 

med.L. camoca, camucum (...) ad. Arab. kamkha or kimkha, which Devic thinks originally a 

Chinese word, and ultimately identical with OF. canque. 

camel \Late OE. camel, camell, ad. L. camel-us (-ellus) (...) perh. f. vb. gamal, Arab. jamala to 

bear (Gesenius). 

76

camise \Arab. qamiç under-tunic, shirt; occurring in the Koran, but generally thought to be ad. 

L. camisia, camisa... 

camlet \app. immediately from French: Littré cites chamelot 13th c. (...). The ultimate origin is 

obscure; at the earliest known date the word was associated (by Europeans) with camel, as if 

stuff made of camel's hair; but there is reason to think it was originally the Arabic khamlat, 

from khaml; Marco Polo (ed. Yule) I. 248 (Skeat)... 

camphor \a. F. camfre, camphre = med.L., Pr., and Pg. camphora, It. canfora, Sp. and Pg. 

alcanfor (...) a. Arab. kafur, in Old Pers. kapur.... 

canaut \Urdu from Arab. qanat (Yule). 

candy \a. F. candi in sucre candi; cf. It. zucchero candi (found, according to Littré, in an It. 

author of 1310), Sp. azucar cande, Pg. assúcar candi, med.L. saccharum candi; a. Arab., orig. 

Pers. qand sugar, the crystallized juice of the sugar-cane (whence Arab. qandah candy, qandi 

candied)... 

cane \ME. canne, cane, a. OF. cane, later canne (= Pr. cana, Sp. caña, It. canna) (...) perh. from 

Semitic: cf. Heb. qaneh, Arab. qanah reed, cane... 

caphar \In F. caphar, a. Arab. khafarah defence, premium for defence or protection, f. khafara 

to protect, patronize. 

carafe \a. F. carafe = It. caraffa (Neapol. carrafa a measure of liquids), Sp. and Pg. garrafa, 

Sicil. carrabba. According to Littré identified by Mohl with Pers. qarabah ‘a large flagon’ (see 

carboy); but Dozy refers it to Arabic gharafa to draw or lift water: cf. the derivatives ghuruf 

little cup, ghiraf a great and full measure of dry things, gharraf having much water, ghirafah a 

draught, etc., no one of which however exactly answers to the Romanic forms. 

caramel \a. F. caramel, ad. Sp. (It., Pg.) caramelo, of uncertain origin. Scheler suggests that the 

Sp. represents L. calamellus little tube, in reference to its tubular form; Mahn thinks it from 

med.L. cannamella sugar-cane: an Arabic source is conjectured by Littré. 

carat \a. F. carat, ad. It. carato: cf. Sp. and Pg. quilate, earlier quirate, a. Arab. qirat (and qirrat) 

‘weight of 4 grains’... 

caratch \Arab. kharaj tribute. 

caraway \From med.L. carui, or some allied Romanic form: cf. (...) OSp. alcaravea, 

alcarahueya, Pg. alcaravia, alcorovia, a. Arab. al-karawiya or -karwiya... 

carcass, carcase \ (...) It is to be noted however that OF. carcois, med.L. carcosium, must app. 

be separated from OF. tarquais quiver, evidently ad. Pers. (Arab., Turk. tar-kash quiver, arrowcase), 

although some confusion of the two words may be suspected in mod.F. carquois (since 

15th c.), It. carcasso and turcasso, Pg. carcaz quiver... 

carmine \a. F. or Sp. carmin, in med.L. carmin-us, contracted from carmesin-us, f. Sp. carmesí 

crimson, a. Arab. qirmazi ‘crimson’, f. qirmiz, kermes, alkermes, the scarlet grain insect. 

carob \a. (...) Sp. garrobo, algarrobo, a. Arab. (al) kharrubah, in Pers. khirnub, ‘bean-pods, 

carobs’. 

caroteel \possibly ad. Arab. qirtal, collective of qirtalat, qartillat ass's burden, basket, fruitbasket. 

carthamus \mod.L. carthamus (in F. carthame), ad. Arab. qartum, qirtim, in same sense. 

cassab \Hind., a. Arab. qaççab butcher. 

cassock \a. F. casaque ‘a cassocke, mandilion, long coat’, 16th c. in Littré, (corresp. to Sp. and 

Pg. casaca ‘a souldiers cassocke, a frock, a horsemans coat’(...)). Lagarde (Götting. Gelehrte 

Anzeiger, 15 Apr. 1887, 238) maintains that F. casaque is a back-formation from casaquin (by 

incorrectly viewing the latter as a dimin. form), and that casaquin, It. casacchino, was a 

corruption of Arab. kazagand, ad. Pers. kazhagand, a padded jerkin, or acton, f. kazh = kaj raw 

silk, silk floss + agand stuffed... 

catur \Original language unknown: Portuguese writers call them catures: Capt. Burton has 

suggested identity with Arab. ‘katireh, a small craft,’ but this seems phonetically unlikely; 

moreover Jal identifies the catur of Calicut with the Arab. almadia... 

cebratane \ad. Sp. cebratana, cerbatana of same meaning, app. ad. Arab. (and Pers.) zabatana, 

sabatana blowing tube for shooting birds (for which Piedro de Alcala has zarbatana, Dozy); 

also found in Pg. sarabatana, It. cerbottana, Fr. sarbatane, sarbacane. 

ceterach \a. med.L. ceterach (...); the origin has been variously sought in Arabic and in Celtic. 

chai \See cha; perh. borrowed afresh from Russian or Arabic. 

chebec \a. F. chebec; (...) Sp. jabeque, OSp. xabeque, -veque, Pg. xabeco, -veco, OPg. 

enxabeque, It. sciabecco, zambecco, stambecco, mod.Arab. shabbak, shobbak... 

77

chechia \Fr. chéchia, ad. Maghribi Arab. shashiya, f. Arab. Shash, name of a town in 

Transoxiana. 

check \ME. chek, chak, aphetic f. eschek, -chak, a. OF. eschec, -ek, -eq, eschac, in ONF. eskec, 

escac, Pr. escac, It. scacco ‘check’ in chess, med.L. scaccus, scachus; cf. also the parallel forms 

Sp. jaque, OSP. xaque ‘check’, Pg. xaque ‘check’ and ‘shah’ (of Persia). Adapted form 

(immed. from Arabic) of Pers. shah ‘king’, also the ‘King’ in chess; in this specific sense the 

Pers. word was taken into Arabic, where arose the phrase shah mat(a, ‘the King is dead’, i.e. 

can make no further move: see checkmate... 

checkmate \ME. chek mat(e chekmat(e, aphetic f. OF. eschec mat, eschec et mat, Pr. escat 

mat, It. scaccomatto, Sp. jaque y mate, OSp. xaquimate, OSp. and Pg. xaque mate, ad. Arabic 

shah-mat(a the king is dead: see check n.1 

cheese \Of doubtful origin; but prob. a. Pers. and Urdu chiz ‘thing’. Yule says such expressions 

used to be common among young Anglo-Indians as ‘My new Arab is the real chiz’, i.e. ‘the 

real thing’. 

chelingo \In mod.F. chelingue; quoted by Yule from Valentijn as chialeng, and by him 

identified with Arabic shalandi, which is app. the mediæval chelandium (...) (But this is not 

certain.) 

chemist \16th c. chimist, a. F. chimiste, ad. mod.L. chimista, chymista, used instead of the 

earlier alchimista, after the latter began to be analysed, and the Arabic al- separated from the 

rest of the word... 

chess \ME. ches, chess, aphetic f. AF. and OF. eschès (OF. also eschecs, eschas, eschax, escas, 

mod.F. échecs = échè-z) ‘chequers, chess’, pl. of eschec (escac, etc.) check n.1 So med.L. had 

scacci, scaci, scachi, It. scacchi, Pr. escacos, all plurals, as name of the game; Sp. and Pg., on 

the other hand, have preserved in Sp. ajedrez, Pg. xadrez, the Arabic name, shât-ranj, from 

OPers. chatrang, Skr. chaturanga lit. ‘the four angas or members of an army (elephants, horses, 

chariots, foot-soldiers)’. Cf. check n.1 

ciclatoun \a. OF. ciclaton, (...) in Sp. ciclaton, Pr. sisclato (Diez), also MHG. ciclât, ziklât, 

siglât, and siklatîn. The source of the names found in most European langs. in the Middle 

Ages, appears to have been Arabic (orig. Pers.) siqilatun, also siqilat, siqalat, saqalat, (acc. to 

Mr. J. Platts) from siqillat, siqallat, for saqirlat, saqarlat, Arabicized form of Pers. sakarlat, the 

same word which has given scarlet... 

Cid \Sp. cid chief, commander, a. Arab. sayyid, lord. 

cigar \ad. Sp. cigarro: in F. cigare. The Spanish word appears not to be from any lang. of W. 

Indies. (...) The name cigarral applied to a kind of pleasure-garden and summer-house (as in 

the cigarrales of Toledo), which has sometimes been pressed into service in discussing the 

etymology, is said by Barcia, after P. Guadio, to be related neither to cigarra nor cigarro, but to 

be of Arabic origin meaning ‘little house’ (casa pequeña). It is said however to be applied in 

Cuba to a tobacco garden or nursery. 

cipher \a. OF. cyfre, cyffre (mod.F. chiffre) = Sp. Pg. It. cifra, med.L. cifra, ciphra, f. Arab. 

çifr the arithmetical symbol ‘zero’ or ‘nought’ (...), a subst. use of the adj. çifr ‘empty, void’, f. 

çafara to be empty... 

civet \a. F. civette (...), all originating in the Arab. name zabad, zubad. (...) See also zibet. The 

Arabic lexicographers connect the word with zabada to cream, foam, zubd froth, cream, 

zubbad cream, etc., as if orig. applied to the secretion... 

coffee \ad. Arab. qahwah, in Turkish pronounced kahveh, the name of the infusion or beverage; 

said by Arab lexicographers to have originally meant ‘wine’ or some kind of wine, and to be a 

derivative of a vb.-root qahiya ‘to have no appetite.’... 

coffle \ad. Arab. qafilah caravan, travelling company; see cafila. 

cohob \Origin uncertain: it may be the root of next word, or merely a contraction of 

cohobation. An Arabic derivation is suspected. There is a Semitic root ka , ab, which has in 

Ethiopic the sense ‘second’, with a deriv. vb. ‘to double, repeat’; this may have occurred in a 

vulgar Arabic dialect... 

colcothar \So in F., Pg. and med.L. (also calcatar), Sp. colcotar, ad. Arab. qolqotar... 

Copt \Cf. F. copte, mod.L. Coptus, Cophtus ad. Arab. quft, qift collective, ‘the Copts’, with 

relative adj. qufti, qifti Coptic, also qubt, qibt with relative adj. qubti, qibti, most prob. ad. 

Coptic gyptios, kyptaios, repr. Gr. Aigyptios Egyptian. The Arabic u is in some places 

pronounced o, and Arabic having no p is obliged to substitute f or b: to the former is owing the 

early Cophtus... 

78

cork \Cf. Sp. corcha, corche in same sense; but 15th c. corke, with 16th c. Du. kork, kurk, Ger. 

kork, appears to represent OSp. alcorque ‘a corke shooe, a pantofle’ (Minsheu), in which sense 

corke is cited in 1463 (sense 2); (...) Alcorque, known in Sp. of date 1458, was immediately 

from Sp. Arabic (Covarrubias 1611 has ‘dicho en Arabigo corque’); but its origin is uncertain... 

coss \a. obs. F. cosse, ad. It. cosa thing, a translation of Arab. shai ‘thing’, the term applied to 

the unknown quantity (or x) of an equation, etc. 

cossid \a. Arab. (and Pers.) qaçid courier. 

cost \OE. cost, ad. L. costum (costos) (...) Arab. qust, Skr. kustha (Yule), the thick aromatic 

root of the composite plant... 

cotton \ME. coton, cotoun, a. F. coton = Pr. coton, It. cotone, OSp. coton, Pg. cotão, a. Arab. 

qutn, qutun, in Sp. Arab. qoton. From the Arab. with prefixed article, alqoton, Sp. alcoton, 

algodon, comes acton, q.v. 

couscous \a. F. couscous (also improp. couscou, couscoussou), a. Arab. kuskus, f. kaskasa to 

pound or bruise small. 

cowle \a. Arab. qaul word, promise, bargain, compact, which ‘has become technical in the 

Indian vernaculars, owing to the prevalence of Mohammedan Law’ (Yule). 

cramoisy \a. early It. cremesí and OF. crameisi, later cramoisi = Sp. carmesí, Pg. carmezim; 

the original type is seen in It. chermesí, chermizí, a. Arab. qirmazi of or belonging to the 

qirmiz, kermes or alkermes, the Scarlet Grain insect: see crimson... 

crimson \The 15th c. cremesin(e corresponds exactly to early Sp. cremesin (cited 140312), 

early It. cremesino and med.L. cremesinus, variants (by metathesis of r) of med.L. kermesinus, 

carmesinus, It. chermesino, carmesino, Sp. carmesin (16th c.), f. It. chermisí, cremesí, Sp. 

carmesí (cited 1422), (a. Arab. qermazi, qirmazi: see cramoisy) + suffix -ino... 

crocus \a. L. crocus, a. Gr. krócos the crocus, and its product saffron: app. of Semitic origin; 

cf. Heb. karkom, crocus, saffron, Arab. kurkum, saffron, turmeric. 

cubeb \a. Fr. cubèbe (14th c. in Littré) = Pr., Sp., It. and med.L. cubeba, ad. Arab. kababah. In 

OF. also quibibes (in W. de Biblesworth), quybybes, cucubes (in MSS. of Mandeville, 14th c.), 

whence the ME. variants. 

cumin \OE. cymen (:–cumin), a. L. cumin-um (cym-) (...), Sp., Pg. comino, (...) is supposed to 

have been a foreign word, cognate in origin with the Semitic names, Heb. kammôn, Arab. 

kammûn, and their cognates. 

curcuma \med. or mod.L. ad. Arab. kurkum saffron, turmeric: see crocus. 

cuttanee \Urdu and Pers. kattani, f. Arab. kattan flax. 

dabuh \Arab. dabu , hyæna = Heb. tsabua , Jer. xii. 9. 

dahabeeyah \Arab. dhahabiyah lit. ‘the golden’, f. dhahab gold: name of the gilded state barge 

of the Muslim rulers of Egypt. 

daman \From the Arabic name daman israil, sheep or lamb of Israel. 

Damascus \L. Damascus, Gr. Damaskós, from Semitic: cf. Heb. Dammeseq, Arab. Di-mashq, 

Dimeshq; thence Heb. d'meseq or d'mesheq, transl. ‘silken’ in Amos iii. 12 (Rev. V.). 

deloul \colloq. Arab. dhelul, Arab. dhalul, lit. obedient. 

demijohn \In F. dame-jeanne (1694 Th. Corneille dame-jane, 1701 Furetière Dame Jeanne, lit. 

‘Dame Jane’); so Sp. dama-juana (as if Dama Juana); mod.Pr., in different dialects, dama-jana, 

(...) mod. Arabic damajanah, damajanah, etc. in 19th c. lexicons... 

demon \Arab., the demon: see ghoul 

Deneb \ad. Arab. dhanab (ad-dajaja) (hen's) tail. 

dervish \a. Pers. darvesh, darvish poor, a religious mendicant, a friar, in Arab. darwesh, 

darwish, Turkish dervish, the latter being the immediate source of the European forms: (..) Sp. 

derviche (...). (The native Arabic equivalent is faqir poor, fakir.) 

dewan \Arab. and Pers. diwan, divan, Pers. formerly devan, the same word as divan, of which 

an early sense was ‘register’... 

dhow \Original language unknown; now in use all round the coast of the Arabian Sea from 

Western India to E. Africa, also on Lake Nyanza. The Marathi form is daw, and the word exists 

in mod. Arabic as daw (Johnson 1852)... 

dibs \colloq. Arab. debs = Heb. debash honey, wine syrup. 

dieb \a. Arab. dhib, ‘wolf’, also in some districts ‘jackal’... 

dinar \Arab. and Pers. dinar... 

dirhem \Arab. dirham, dirhim, ad. L. drachma... 

79

diss \a. Arab. dis, the native name. 

divan \A word originally Persian, devan, now diwan, in Arabic pronounced diwan, diwan; in 

Turkish divan, whence in many European langs., It. divano, Sp., Pg., F. divan. Originally, in 

early use, a brochure, or fascicle of written leaves or sheets, hence a collection of poems, also a 

muster-roll or register (...) Another European form, older than divan, and app. directly from 

Arabic, is It. dovana, doana, now dogana, F. douane (in 15th c. douwaine), custom-house: see 

douane. 

doronicum \mod.L., ad. mod. Gr. doroneíkon, ad. Arab. daranaj, darunaj. Adopted by Linnæus 

in his Systema Naturæ (1735) as the name of a genus. 

douane \Fr.; = It. doana, dogana, lingua Franca douana, from Arabic: see divan. 

douar \a. Arab. duar, in F. douar. 

doum \Arab. daum, dum. 

dragoman \a. F. dragoman, drogman, in OF. drugemen = Sp. dragoman (...) ad. OArab. 

targuman, now tarjuman, tarjaman, turjuman, interpreter, f. targama, tarjama to interpret = 

Chaldee targem, (whence targum). From 14th c. commonly treated as a compound of Eng. man 

with pl. dragomen; in 19th c. more frequently dragomans. The variants are due to the varying 

vocalization of the Arabic word, and the passage of Old Arabic g into j... 

drub \Appears first after 1600; all the early instances, before Hudibras, 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 daraba to beat, to bastinado, vbl. n. darb 

beating, a blow, a drub. There are difficulties... 

Druse \ad. Arab. Duruz, a form of plural used for names of nations... 

dubba \Arab., Pers., and Urdu dabbah vessel made of raw skins. 

dufter \Arab., Pers., Urdu daftar record, register... 

dulcarnon \a. med.L. dulcarnon, corrupted from Arabic dhu'lqarnayn two-horned, bicornis, 

cornutus; lit. ‘lord or possessor of the two horns’. 

dura mater \Med.L. = hard mother; literal translation of the Arabic umm al-galidah or umm 

al-jafiyah (Bocthor) in the same sense, in accordance with the Arabic use of ‘father’, ‘mother’, 

‘son’, etc. to indicate relations between things. 

durra \Arabic dhurah, dhurrah. 

elemi \In Fr. élémi, It., Sp. elemi, Pg. gumileme; of unknown (perhaps oriental) etymology; the 

Arab. name lami, cited by some writers, appears, according to Devic, to be known only as a 

very modern word... 

elixir \a. med.L. elixir (cf. Fr. élixir, It. elissire, Sp. elíxir, Pg. elexir), ad. Arab. al-iksir (= 

sense 1), prob. ad. late Gr. xérion ‘desiccative powder for wounds’. 

emblic \ad. med.L. emblica, -icus, ad. Ar. amlaj a. Pers. amleh, cf. Skr. amalaka of same 

meaning. 

emir \a. Arab. amir, commander. See ameer, admiral. 

empty \rendering Arab. Ruba el-Khali 

enam \Pers. (Arab.) in , am, lit. ‘favour’, f. na , ama to be happy, in 4th conj. an , ama to favour, 

bless. 

essera \med.L. essera, essere, ad. Arab. shara, with the art. ash-shara: see Avicenna Canon iv. 

iii. cap. 13 in the orig. and in the Lat. version of 1483. Cf. Fr. essère. 

eyalet \Turk. èyalet, a. Arab. iyalah (-at), noun of action f. al to preside. 

eye \transl. of mod.L. oculus mundi: cf. the Arab. name , ain ashshams ‘eye of the sun’. 

ezan\Arab. adhan. 

faki \Arab. faqih one learned in the law. 

fakir \a. Arab. faqir lit. ‘poor, poor man’; some of the early forms may be due to the pl. fuqara. 

false \tr. Arab. çubh kadhib 

fana \a. Arab. fana‘. 

fardel \a. OF. fardel (later fardeau), dim. of farde burden, cognate with Sp., Pg. fardo. It has 

been suggested that the source of the Rom. word is Arab. fardah... 

Farsi \a. Pers., f. Fars, the Arabic name for the region of Pars in Iran: see Parsee and Persian a. 

and n. 

Fatiha \Arab. fatiha, fatha opening, f. fataha to open. 

Fatimite \f. Arab. Fatima + -ite1. 

faufel \a. Arab. faufel. 

80

fedayeen \Colloq. Arab. fida‘iyin, pl. of Class. Arab. fida‘i one who undertakes perilous 

adventures. 

feddan \Arab. fadán, faddán a yoke of oxen; an acre. 

felafel \ad. Arab. falafil. 

fellagha \ad. colloq. Arab. fallaga, pl. of fallag bandit, robber. 

fellah \a. Arab. fellah husbandman, f. falaha to till the soil. 

felucca \a. It. felu(c)ca, Fr. felouque, Sp. faluca, Pg. falua, mod.Arab. falukah, also fulaikah. 

Devic considers it to be of Arabic formation, cognate with Arab. fulk ship, f. root falaka to be 

round. 

fen \fen, in L. version of Avicenna, ad. Arab. fann species, class. 

fennec \Arab. fenek, a name vaguely applied to various fur-bearing animals. 

ferash \Urdu from Arab. farrash, f. farasha to spread. 

Feringhee \An oriental adoption of frank, with Arab. ethnic suffix -i; in Arab. faranji, in Pers. 

farangi. 

fers \a. OF. fierce, fierche, fierge (in med.L. fercia, farzia), ad. (ultimately) Pers. ferzen, Arab. 

firzan, also ferz. The Pers. word means ‘wise man’, ‘counsellor’. 

fetwa \Arab. fetwa (pronounced by the Turks fetfa), f. fata, in 4th conj. to instruct by a legal 

decision (pr. pple. mufti mufti). 

fingan \Arab. finjan, in Egypt fingan. 

fistic \ad. (through med.L. fisticum) Arab. fistuq, fustuq, -aq, a. Pers. pistah, whence ultimately 

pistachio. 

fluce \Arab. fulus, pl. of fals name of a small copper coin. 

Formalhaut \Arab. fumu 'l-haut mouth of the fish, Sp. fomahant. 

fonda \Sp. fonda from Arab.: see fonduk. 

fondaco \It., ad. Arab.; see fonduk. 

fonduk \Arab. funduq an inn... 

foujdar \Pers. faujdar f. Arab. fauj troop. 

frasilah \mod.Arab. farsalah, pl. farasulah; by some scholars thought to be of Romanic origin: 

cf. parcel. 

fustet \a. F. fustet, ad. Pr. fustet = Sp. fustete, an etymologizing corruption (as if dim. of Pr. 

fust, Sp. fuste stick, piece of wood) of the Arab. source of fustic. 

fustic \(..) a. Sp. fustoc, a. Arab. fustuq, ad. Gr. pistáke pistachio... 

futah \ad. Arab. futa cloth used as a waist-wrapper. 

gable \ (...) With different sense, but agreeing in root, grade, and suffix, are OHG. gebal head, 

gibilla crown of the head, app. cognate with Gr. kefalé head (OAr. root ghebh)... 

gaiassa \Arab. qayyasa. 

galabiya \= Arab. jallabiya, pop. equivalent of jilbab. 

galingale \ad. OF. galingal (garingal), a. Arab. khalanjan or khaulinjan, said to be a. (through 

Pers.) Chinese Ko-liang-kiang, lit. ‘mild ginger from Ko,’ a prefecture in the province of 

Canton... 

gamash \a. F. gamache (now only dial.) (...) identified by Dozy with Sp. guadamaci, Pg. 

guadamecim (now obsolete), a kind of leather, believed to be a. Arab. ghadamasi, f. the name 

of Ghadamas in Tripoli, where a highly esteemed kind of leather was made. In some of the 

forms the ending has evidently been assimilated to shoes. 

gandoura \ad. Algerian Arab. gandura, classical Arab. qandura. 

garble \App. originally a term of Mediterranean commerce, ad. It. garbellare, ad. Arab. 

gharbala (also karbala) to sift, select, related to ghirbal, kirbal, sieve; cf. Sp. garbillare to sift 

corn, garbillo corn-sieve... 

Garshuni \ad. Arab. karshuni. 

gazelle \a. F. gazelle (...) = Sp. gacela, gacele, gacel, Pg. gazella, It. gazzella, ad. Arab. ghazal, 

which prob. passed first into Sp. and thence to the other Rom. tongues. 

gehena \a. Eccl. Lat. gehenna, a. Hellenistic Gr. geenna, rendered ‘hell’ in the Eng. N.T. (...). 

The Gr. was ad. post-Biblical Heb. geihinnom hell, place of fiery torment for the dead (whence 

Arab. jahannam)... 

Gelalean \f. Arab. Jalal ad-din. 

genet \a. OF. gen(n)ete, -ette, jen(n)ette (F. genette) = Sp. and Pg. gineta, med.L. geneta 

(mod.L. genetta), a. Arab. jarnait. 

81

genie \The word génie was adopted by the Fr. translators of the Arabian Nights as the 

rendering of the Arab. word which it resembled in sound and in sense. In Eng. genie has been 

commonly used in the sing. and genii (see genius 2) in the plural. 

gerfaunt \app. alteration of Arab. zarafah giraffe, assimilated to elefaunt. 

get \a. ON. geta (gat, gátum, getenn) to get, obtain, to beget, also, to guess (...) The OAr. root 

ghed, ghod ‘to seize’, ‘take hold of’, is found also in L. præda (:–præ-heda) booty, prædium an 

estate, perh. also in hedera ivy (literally the ‘clinger’)... 

ghaffir \ad. Arab. ghafir. 

ghawazee \ad. Arab. ghawazi, pl. of ghazeeyeh. 

ghazal \Pers., Arab. ghazal. 

ghazeeyeh \ad. Arab. ghaziya. 

Ghazi \Arab. ghazi, pr. pple. of ghaza to fight. 

gherkin \(...) The ultimate origin is unknown. Arabic has , ajur cucumber, but Lane regards this 

as adopted from Gr. The Persian angur is sometimes given as the etymon, but it means ‘a 

grape’. 

gholam \Arab. 

ghoul \a. Arab. ghul, from a verbal root meaning ‘to seize’. 

gibli \ad. Arab. kibli south wind. 

gimbri \ad. Arab. gunbri. 

ginger \(...) Sp. gengibre, agengibre, Pg. gengivre, It. zenzevero, gengero, gengiovo. Other 

forms of this widely diffused word are Arab. zanjabil (already in the Koran)... 

gingili \a. Hindi and Mahratta jinjali, according to Yule prob. of European introduction; 

ultimately repr. Arab. juljulan, in Spanish Arab. jonjolin, whence (with Arab. article) Sp. 

aljonjoli, It. giuggiolino, Pg. girgelim... 

giraffe \Ultimately ad. Arab. zarafah, whence also It. giraffa, Sp. and Pg. girafa... 

girba \ad. Arab. qirba waterskin. 

goat \Com. Teut.: OE. gát fem. = MDu. geit, geet(e, Du. geit (obs. geite, geyte) (...) OAr. 

ghaid-... 

goum \Fr., ad. Arab. gum, dial. var. of qaum band, troop. 

grab \a. Arab. gurab, lit. ‘raven’, applied to a kind of galley. 

gufa \Arab., f. quffa basket. 

guides \Corruptly ad. med.L. guidegi, ad. Arab. widaj. 

gundi \Tripolitan Arabic (? orig. Berber); Lyon writes it in Arab. characters qundi; in Tripoli 

the letter qaf is pronounced (g). 

gyrfalcon \ Sp., Pg. gerifalte (...) The latter suggestion was prob. based on the current term 

falco sacer denoting a kind of hawk; but according to modern scholars sacer in this use (...) 

does not mean ‘sacred’, but is an adoption of the Arabic çaqr... 

habara \Arab. habara. 

haboob \Arab. habub blowing furiously. 

Hadith \a. Arab. hadith a tradition. 

hadj \Arab. hajj. 

hadji \Arab. haji pilgrim: see hadj. 

hafiz \Pers., f. Arab. hafiz watch, guard. 

haik \Arab. hayk, f. hak to weave. 

hakeem \Arabic hakim wise, learned, philosopher, physician, f. hakama to exercise authority, 

in deriv. conj. to know, be wise or learned. 

hakim \Arabic hakim governor, f. hakama to exercise authority. 

halal \f. Arab. halal lawful. 

halalcor \Persian (Urdu) halalkhor, f. Arab. halal a thing religiously lawful or indifferent + 

Pers. khur-dan to eat. 

halawi \Arab. 

halfa \Arab. halfah, or halfa. 

halva \ad. Turk. helva, mod. Gr. halvas, Arab. halwa hulwa. 

hammada \f. Arab. hammada. 

hammal \Arab. hammal porter, f. hamala to carry. 

hammam \Arab. hammam bath. 

Hanafite \f. Arab. hanafi (f. Hanifah personal name) + -ite. 

Hanbalite \f. Arab. hanbali (f. pers. name Hanbal) + -ite. 

82

handjar \Pers. (Arab.) khanjar dagger. 

hanger \(...) The suggestion has been offered that this is the same word as the Pers. Arab. 

khanjar: see handjar. But... 

Hanif \Arab. hanif, app. the same as Heb. hanef impious... 

haras \a. OF. haraz (12th c.), later haras ‘horses and mares kept only for breed’ (Cotgr.), in 

med.L. haracium, of uncertain origin; Diez suggests relationship to Arabic faras horse. 

hardim \Arab. hardhawn, lizard, land crocodile. 

harem \a. Arab. haram, and harim lit. (that which is) prohibited or unlawful, that which a man 

defends and fights for, as his family, a sacred place, sanctuary, enclosure; the wo-men's part of 

the house; wives, women; from harama to prohibit, forbid, make unlawful... 

harka \a. Moroccan Arab. harka military expedition, classical Arab. haraka movement. 

harmala \(...) from Semitic; cf. Arab. harmil wild rue... 

harmattan \ (...) but acc. to Christaller, Dict. Asante & Fante Lang. (Basel 1881), a borrowed 

foreign word, viz. ‘Sp. harmatan, an Arabic word’. (But no such Arabic word has been found.) 

hashish \Arab. hashish dry herb, hay, the dry leaves of hemp powdered, the intoxicant thence 

prepared. 

hatti \Persian khatt-i-sharif, khatt-i-humayun, f. Arab. khatt line, written line, writing + i 

(Pers.) connective + (a) Arab. sharif noble, honourable, sacred, and (b) Pers. humayun sacred, 

august, royal, imperial. 

havildar \Pers. hawal-dar, hawala-dar, f. Arab. hawalah charge + Pers. dar holding, holder. 

hazard \a. OF. hasard, -art (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.): cf. Pr., Sp., Pg. azar (...). The ori-gin of 

the French word is uncertain, but its source was prob. Arabic. According to William of Tyre, the 

game took its name from a castle called Hasart or Asart in Palestine, during the siege of which 

it was invented: see Littré s.v. The true Arab name of this castle appears to have been ‘Ain 

Zarba (Prof. Margoliouth). Mahn proposes vulgar Arab. az-zahr or az-zar ‘die’ (Bocthor); but 

early evidence for this sense is wanting. 

hegira \a. med.L. hegira (F. hégire, Sp. hegira, It. egira), ad. Arab. hijrah departure from one's 

country and friends, spec. al hijrat the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina; f. hajara to 

separate, go away... 

henna \a. Arab. henna , . See also alcanna. 

Hezbollah \a. Pers. hezbollah, Arab. hizbullah Party of God, f. hezb, hizb party + allah Allah. 

hikayat \Malay, ad. Arab. hikaya story, narrative. 

Hobson-Jobson \Corruption by British soldiers in India of Arab. Ya Hasan! Ya Husayn! = O 

Hasan! O Husain! 

hollock \a. Sp. aloque (in Minsheu haloque) adj., light red, n., a species of wine of fine red 

colour, a. Arab. haluqi, adj. from haluq, an aromatic of clear red colour (Dozy)... 

hookah \a. Arab. (Pers., Urdu) huqqah casket, vase, cup, ‘the bottle through which the fumes 

pass in smoking tobacco’... 

hookum \a. Hindi, a. Arab. hukm, f. hakama (cf. hakim). 

horn \Representing well-known uses of Heb. qeren horn, found also in Syriac, Arabic, and the 

Semitic langs. generally... 

houbara \mod.L. (C. L. J. L. Bonaparte Saggio d'una Distribuzione Metodica degli Animali 

Vertebrati (1832) 84), f. Arab. hubari bustard. 

houri \a. F. houri (1654 in Hatz.-Darm.), a. Pers. huri, f. Arabic hur pl. of haura‘ fem., in hural- 

, ayun (females) gazelle-like in the eyes, f. hawira to be black-eyed like a gazelle. 

house \a. OF. huche (12th c. in Littré), houce (13th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), mod.F. housse (med.L. 

hucia, houcia, hussia, housia). According to Darmesteter-Thomas, perh. adopted during the 

Crusades from Arabic gushiah, ‘tegumentum, velum’... 

howdah \Pers. and Urdu haudah, modified from Arab. haudaj, a litter carried by a camel or an 

elephant. 

Howeitat \Arab. (al-) Huwaytat, Arab tribes in north-western Saudi Arabia. 

Hubshee \Pers. habshi, Arab. habashi, of or belonging to Habesh or Abyssinia. 

hulwa \a. Urdu and Arab. halwa sweetmeat. 

hummum \Corruption of Arab. hammam hot bath (hammam). (Arab. hammam, hummum 

means ‘coal, fuel, ashes’.) 

huzoor \a. Arab. hudur (pronounced in India as huzur) presence (employed as a title), f. hadara 

to be present. 

hygeen \Arab. hajin dromedary, pronounced in Egypt hagin... 

83

id-ul-fitr \Arab. , id al-fitr. 

iggri \Representing Egyptian colloq. Arab. pronunc. of ijri, imper. of jara to run. 

ihram \Arab. ihram (f. harama to forbid: cf. harem), a kind of dress used by the Arabs in Spain 

and Africa; ‘sacred state’ (Freytag). 

ilb \Arab. 

imam \a. Arab. imam leader, president, etc., f. amma to go before, precede. The form iman is 

that used in F. and Sp. 

imambara \Hind., f. Arab. imam + Hind. bara enclosure. 

imaret \a. Turk., a. Arab. imarat ‘rendering habitable’, hence ‘hospice’. 

imshi \Local Arabic (Berggren). 

indigo \ (...) The usual name in the Mediterranean countries, before the Portuguese went to 

India, was annil, anil, which came west, through Arabic and Persian, from Sanskrit: see anil... 

irade \Turkish, a. Ar. iradah will, desire. 

Iraqi \Arab.: f. , iraq (see def.) + -i adj. suffix. 

Islam \a. Arab. islam lit. ‘resignation, surrendering’, inf. noun of aslama ‘he resigned or 

surrendered (himself)’, spec. ‘he became or was resigned or submissive (to God)’, hence ‘he 

became or was sincere in his religion’, 4th conjug. of salama ‘he was or became safe, secure, or 

free’; whence also the words salaam, Muslim, Mussulman. 

Ismaelian \f. pr. name Ismael or Ismaïl, the former being the Gr., L., and F. spelling of 

Ishmael... 

ithel \Local Arab. 

izar \Arab. izar, izr‘ veil, covering. 

izzat \Urdu, ad. Arab. , izzah glory. 

jann \a. Arab. jann demon. 

jar \ (...) Sp., Pg. jarra, jarro (...) a. Arab. jarrah, earthen water-vessel. (The Eng. may be in part 

directly from Sp.) 

jargon \(...) variants of jacinth (see jacounce); but most etymologists identify it ultimately with 

zircon, Pg. zarcao, Arab. zarqun. (Both the hyacinth or jacinth and the jargon are varieties of 

zircon.) 

jasmine \ (...) All the European forms derive from the Arabic yas(a)min, adopted from Pers. 

yasmin, also yasman... 

jasper \(...) a word of oriental origin: cf. Heb. yashpeh (Exod. xxviii. 20), Assyrian asphu; 

Pers. yashm, and yashp (Pers. and Arab. yashb, and yashf) jasper... 

jazerant \ (...) Pg. jazerão; in Sp. jacerina, Pg. jazerina (...) Generally agreed to be of Saracen 

origin, and according to Diez prob. identical with Sp. jazarino Algerian, f. Arab. (al-) jazirah 

‘the island’, in pl. Al-jaza , ir, Algiers, in the old Arabic writers Jazirah beni Mazighanan. 

jebel \a. colloq. Arab. jebel, classical Arab. jabal mountain. 

jelab \ad. Arab. jilyab a tunic. 

jemadar \Urdu jama , dar, f. Pers. (Arab.) jama , at body of men, jama , collection, aggregate + 

Pers. dar holder. 

jennet \(...) a. Sp. jinete, ‘a light horseman that rideth a la gineta’ (F. à la genette), i.e. ‘with the 

legs trussed vp in short stirrups, with a target and a ginnet launce’ (Minsheu, 1599). In Fr. and 

Eng. (also in It. gianetto masc., gianetta fem.) transferred from the horseman to his horse, a 

sense unknown to Sp. dictionaries until quite recently. The Sp. use appears in our sense 2, 

which is however later in Eng. Dozy derives the Sp. word from Arab. Zenata ‘a great Berber 

nation noted for the valour of its cavalry’; other conjectures have been made. 

jerboa \mod.L. jerboa, a. Arab. yarbu , , in Barbary yerbo , , the flesh of the loins, also the 

animal; whence F. gerbo, gerboise, Sp. gerbasia. 

jerid \Arab. jarid midrib of the palm-leaf, rod, shaft, javelin. 

jerm \Arabic jarm; in It. germa, F. djerme. 

jeziah \Pers. (Arab.) jizyah poll-tax. 

jihad \Arab. jihad struggle, contest, spec. one for the propagation of Islam. 

jinn \a. Arab. jinn, collect. pl., demons, spirits, angels; sing. jinni (see next). 

jinnee \a. Arab. jinni, fem. jinniyeh, demon or spirit. A more frequent spelling in English is 

genie... 

jol \Arab. 

jubbah \ad. Arab. jubbah, whence also Sp. (with Arab. article) aljuba... 

84

julep \a. F. julep (14th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), in Pr. julep, Sp. and Pg. julepe (...) ad. Arab. julab, 

a. Pers. gul-ab rose-water, f. gul rose + ab water. 

jumma \ad. Hind. jama collection, amount, account, a. Arab. jama , total, aggregate. 

jumma \Pers.-Arab. jama'bandi (Hind. bandi, a. Pers. bandi a tie, band; Skr. bandh bind) 

jupe \(...) Sp. and Pg. (with Arabic article) aljuba (...) a. Arab. jubbah, jibbah jubbah... 

Kababish \Arab. qababish, pl. of qabbashi. 

Kabyle \Arab. qaba‘il, pl. of qabila tribe. 

Kadarite \f. Arab. qadar predestination + -ite. 

kadish \Arab. kadish, f. O.Turk... 

Kaffir \a. Arab. kafir infidel: see caffre. 

kaimakam \Turkish qaimaqam, ad. Arab. qa'im maqam one standing in the place (of another), 

f. qa‘im standing + maqam place, station. 

kali \Arab. qali: see alkali. 

kalian \Pers. kalian, Arab. qalyan, qalyun. 

kanat \Pers., a. Arab. qanat. 

kanoon \a. Pers. or Arab. qanun. 

kantar \Arab. qintar, pl. qanatir, ad. (prob. through Syriac) L. centenarium centenary n.1 (...) 

The form qintar is represented by OF. quintar, Sp. and F. quintal, quintal. (Sp. cántara, cántaro, 

a wine-measure, is unconnected.) 

karabe \= F., It., Pg. carabé (also F., Pg. karabé), ad. Arab. kahruba... 

kat \Arab. qat. 

kavass \Turk. (Arab.) qawwas bow-maker, f. qaws bow. 

kazi \a. Arab. qadi cadi. In Persia and India, Arabic d is pronounced as z. 

kebaya \Ultimately of Pers. or Arab. origin... 

kef \Arab. kaif, colloquially kef, well-being, good-humour, enjoyment, pleasure. 

keffiyeh \Arab. kaffiyah or kuffiyeh, by some held to be ad. late Lat. cofea, see coif. 

keiri \med.L. keiri, cheiri, Arab. khiri, Pers. khiru (yellow) gillyflower. 

Kenite \f. Heb. qênî a gentilic adjective associated with Heb. qayin a weapon made of metal, 

Arab. qayn an ironsmith, maker of iron weapons and tools... 

kermes \= F. kermès, It. chermes, Sp. carmes, Pg. kermes, ad. Ar. and Pers. qirmiz (whence 

also carmine, cramoisy, crimson). 

khakan \Turki (hence Pers. and Arab.) khaqan king, emperor, Great Khan... 

khalifa \Variant of caliph, representing more closely the Arab. khalifah. 

khalsa \Urdu (Pers.) khaliçah, khalça(h, fem. of Arab. khaliç pure, real, proper, properly 

belonging. 

khamsin \Arab. khamsin, mod. colloquial form (= oblique case) of khamsun fifty (see def.). 

khan \a. Turki (hence Pers. and Arab.) khan lord, prince, generally regarded as a modified 

form of khaqan: see khakan and chagan. The title became known in Europe partly through the 

Mongol invasions... 

khan \Arab. khan inn. 

khanjar \Pers. (Arab., Turk., Urdu) khanjar, hanjar dagger. 

khansu \Swahili kanzu shirt, f. Arab. kasâ to clothe. 

kharaj \Arab. kharaj, in Egypt kharag, in Turkish kharatch tribute. 

kharif \(Hind. a.) Arab. kharif gathered, autumn, harvest, autumnal rain. 

khatib \ad. Arab. khatib. 

Khedive \Arab. khedivyah 

khellin \Orig. coined as F. kelline (I. Mustapha 1879, in Compt. Rend. LXXXIX. 442), f. kell, 

given as the Arabic name of Ammi visnaga; the h originated with Samaan (1931), who gave 

the Arabic name as khella... 

Khilafat \ad. Arab. khilafat caliphate, office or rule of a caliph. 

khilat \Urdu (Pers.) khil , at, khal , at, a. Arab. khil , ah (-at). 

khor \Arab. khurr, khorr. 

khubber \Urdu (Pers., Arab.) khabar. 

khutbah \Arab. khutbah, khotbeh, f. khataba to preach. 

kibitka \Russ. kibitka, tent, tilt-wagon, f. Tartar kibits, with Russ. suffix -ka: cf. Arab. qubbat 

‘tent covered with skins’. 

kiblah \Arab. qiblah, that which is placed opposite, f. qabala to be opposite. 

kibrit \Arab. kibrit sulphur. 

85

killadar \Urdu (Pers.) qil , adar, f. Arab. qal , ah (pl. qila , ) fort + Pers. -dar holder. 

kinjal \Native name in the Caucasus (= Russ. kinzhál), a. Pers. (Arab., Turk., Urdu) khanjar. 

kismet \Turk. kismet, Pers. qismat, a. Arab. qisma(t) portion, lot, fate, f. qasama to divide. 

kissar \ad. colloq. Arab. kisar. 

kist \Urdu (Pers., Arab.) qist portion, instalment. 

Kiswa \Arab. 

Kitab \Arab. kitab, lit. writing, book. 

kitar \Arab. qitar, a. Gr. kithara cithara. 

kittel \Yiddish (G., overall, smock), ad. MHG. kitel, kietel cotton or hempen outer garment, 

prob. ad. Arab. qutn cotton. 

kohl \Arab. kuhl, kohl; see alcohol. 

Koran \a. Arab. quran, qoran recitation, f. qara , a to read: cf. Alcoran. 

Koreish \Arab. quraish Koreish, qurashi Koreishite. 

kourbash \f. Arabic qurbash, ad. Turk. qirbach whip: cf. F. courbache. 

kramat \ad. Mal. keramat adj., numinous, sacred, holy, unusual (...) ad. Arab. karamat, pl. of 

karama miracle worked by a saint other than a prophet. 

kuphar \ad. Arab. quffah, circular basket or pannier, circular wicker boat. 

Kuwaiti \Arab. kuwayti, f. Kuwayt Kuwait. 

lablab \Arab. lablab. 

latic \ad. mod.L. latic-a, a. Arab. laÞiqah (Avicenna Qanun iv. fen 1, treat. ii. p. 23). 

leban \Arab. laban, from a root meaning ‘to be white’. 

lebbek \ad. Arab. labakh. 

lemon \ad. (...) Sp. limon, Pg. limão (...) The words are prob. of Oriental origin: cf. Arab. 

laimun... 

leviathan \a. L. (Vulg.) leviathan, a. Heb. livyathan. Some scholars refer the word to a root 

lavah = Arab. laway to twist... 

Lihyanic \f. Arab. lihyan + -ic. 

lilac \a. F. lilac (Cotgr.; now lilas), a. Sp. lilac, a. Arab. lilak, app. ad. Pers. lilak, var. of nilak 

bluish, f. Pers. nil blue, indigo... 

lime \a. F. lime = mod.Pr. limo, ad. Sp. lima, a. Arab. limah: see lemon. 

litham \ad. Arab. litham veil. 

liwa \Arab. liwa‘. 

lohoch \a. med.L. lohoc, looch, a. Arab. la , uq, f. la , iqa to lick. 

loof \a. Arab. luf (see loofah). 

lute \ (...) another form of the word appears in Sp. laud, Pg. alaude; a. Arab. al- , ud, where alis 

the definite article. 

machila \Pg., perh. f. Tamil macil, mañcil stage in a journey, f. Hindi manzil, f. Arabic. 

macramé \App. a. Turk. maqrama towel, napkin, handkerchief, a. Arab. miqramah ? striped 

cloth. 

madrasah \The various forms represent Indian, Turkish, Persian and Arabic regional 

pronunciations of Arab. madrasah, f. darasa to study. 

mafeesh \ad. colloq. Eastern Arab. ma fi-sh there is nothing. 

magazine \(...) Sp. magacen, a. Arab. makhazin, pl. of makhzan storehouse, f. khazana to store 

up. The Arab. word, with prefixed article al-, appears as Sp. almagacen, almacen, Pg. armazem 

warehouse. 

Maghribi \Arab. maghribi, lit. ‘western’. 

Maghzen \Arab. makhzan. 

mahaila \App. f. Arab. safina mahila ship treated with bitumen; cf. Arab. muhl(a) liquid pitch. 

mahal \Urdu (Arab.) mahall, f. Arab. root halla to lodge. 

mahaleb \a. F. macaleb, -lep (Cotgr.), a. Arab. mahlab. Cf. It. macalepo ‘a kinde of perfume or 

sweete smell’ (Florio 1598). 

Mahdi \Arab. mahdiy, lit. ‘he who is guided aright’, passive pple. of hada to lead in the right 

way. 

majlis \Arab. majlis. 

majoon \(Urdu and Turk.) a. Arab. ma , jun. 

maleesh \ad. colloq. Eastern Arab. ma , ale-sh no matter. 

malik \Arab. malik, pr. pple. of malaka to possess, rule. 

86

Mameluke \Ultimately a. Arab. mamluk slave, a subst. use of the pa. pple. of malaka to 

possess... 

mamur \Arab. ma‘mur. 

mancala \ad. colloq. Arab. manqala, f. naqala to move. 

mandarah \Arabic mandarah, lit. ‘place for seeing’, f. nadara to see. 

mandil \Arabic mindil, mandil, sash, turban-cloth, handkerchief, ad. L. mantile (see mantle n.). 

mandill \a. F. mandil (1516th c., now mandille), a. Sp., Pg. mandil (cf. Pr. mandil-s tablecloth), 

a. Arab. mandil: see mandil. 

manna \ (...) G. Ebers (Durch Gosen zum Sinai), gives plausible reasons for believing that the 

Ancient Egyptian mannu denoted the exudation of Tamarix gallica. As the Arab. mann has the 

same sense, it seems possible that the Heb. word may represent the name anciently current in 

the Sinaitic wilderness for this natural product, which in many respects agrees with the 

description of the miraculous manna, and which is still locally regarded as a dew falling from 

the sky... 

manzil \Arab. (hence Pers., Urdu) manzil, f. nazala to descend, alight. 

marabou \a. F. marabou(t, app. repr. a vulgar Arabic use of murabit hermit, Marabout... 

marabout \repr. Arab. murabit hermit, monk... 

maravedi \a. Sp. maravedí (= Pg. maravedim), a derivative of Arab. Murabitin (pl. of murabit: 

see marabout), the name of a Moorish dynasty (usually designated the Almora-vides, this being 

the same word preceded by the Arabic article) which reigned at Cordo-va 10871147. 

marcasite \(...) The etymology is obscure, as the Arabic marqashitha or marqashita, often cited 

as the source, is probably adopted from some European language. 

margarite \ (...) The Pahlavi marvarit, Pers. mervarid, Syriac marganitha (whence Arab. 

marjan) are prob. from Greek. 

Marid \repr. two Arabic forms: ‘marid pr. pple. of marada to rebel, and ma‘rid, f. the same 

root. 

marzipan \(...) and ‘a mediæval coin’. Kluyver, in Zeitschr. f. deutsche Wortforschung July 

1904, ingeniously tries to prove that the last-mentioned sense is the source of all the others. He 

identifies the word with med.L. matapanus, a Venetian coin bearing a figure of Christ on a 

throne (Du Cange), and suggests that it represents Arab. mauthaban ‘a king that sits still’ 

(Lane), which he conjectures to have been used by Saracens as a derisive name for this coin. 

mashallah \Arab. phrase ma sha'llah, what God wills (must come to pass). 

masjid \a. Arab. masjid: see mosque. 

masquerade \ (...) The Sp. máscara, It. maschera, are regarded by most recent etymo-logists as 

a. Arab. maskharah laughing-stock, buffoon (the sense ‘man in masquerade’, given by 

Richardson and Bocthor, is said by Dozy to be a modern importation from Romanic), f. root 

sakhira to ridicule. Some scholars, however, reject this view... 

mastabah \Arab. miç-, maçtabah (of Pers. origin). 

mastic \ Pg. mastique, Sp. masticis (also almástiga, almástic, almáciga, through Arab. almaçtika, 

-ki)... 

matachin \a. F. matachin (...), a. Sp. matachin, conjectured to be a. Arab. mutawajjihin, pr. 

pple. plural of tawajjaha to assume a mask, denominative verb from wajh face. 

mate \(...) The Rom. word is a. Pers. mat at a loss, helpless (used in shah mat ‘the king is 

helpless’, checkmate). Gildemeister, Dozy, and other modern scholars, dispute the customary 

view that the Persian word is a. Arab. mat ‘he has died’. 

matrass \ (...) Devic suggests adoption from the Arab. matrah leather bottle; cf. mod.L. 

matracium ‘a little sack, wherein is calcinated tartar or the like, pricked here and there for the 

emission of liquors’ (tr. Blancard's Phys. Dict., ed. 2, 1693). 

mattamore \a. F. matamore, a. Arab. matmurah, f. tamara to store up. 

mattress \a. OF. materas (mod.F. matelas), ad. It. materasso, commonly viewed as identical 

(exc. for the Arab. prefixed article al-) with Sp. and Pg. almadraque, Pr. almatrac, ad. Arab. almatrah, 

place where something is thrown... 

Maugrabee \a. Arab. magrabiy western, f. garb west. 

Maugrabin \a. Arab. magrabiyin, pl. of magrabiy: see prec. 

Maulana \Arab. maulana our Lord: cf. moolvee and mullah. 

mauze \Arab. mauz. 

Mazhabi \Hindi, f. Arab. mazhab religion. 

mazut \Russ. mazút, ad. Arab. makhzulat refuse, waste. 

87

Mecca \The name (repr. Arab. Makkah) of the birthplace of Muhammad, the great place of 

pilgrimage of the Muslims. 

medina \Arab., ‘town’. 

medine \a. F. medin (Cotgr.), a. vulgar Arab. mayyidi, corrupt form of mu'ayyidiy, from the 

name Mu'ayyad... 

medjidie \Turkish (Arabic) mejidie, f. the name Abdu'l Majid. 

mehari \F. méhari, f. Algerian Arab. mehri, Class. Arab. mahri, of Mahra, a province in South 

Arabia. 

Melchite \ad. L. Melchita, repr. Syr. mal'kaye pl., ‘royalists’ (i.e. adherents of the party of the 

Roman emperor), f. malkå king; the Arabic form is malakiy. 

meri \a. med.L. meri, OF. meri, a. Arab. mari‘. 

mesquita \a. Sp. mezquita and It. meschita, ad. African Arab. masgid, dial. pronunciation of 

masjid... 

Metawileh \ad. Arab. matawila, pl. of mutawali one who professes to love ‘Ali. 

metel \a. mod.L. methel, a. Arab. jauz maÞil (where jauz means ‘nut’)... 

mezereon \a. med.L. mezereon, ad. Arab. mazaryun (Avicenna). 

mihrab \Arab. mihrab praying-place. 

millet \Turk. millet nation, group of co-religionists, f. Arab. milla religion. 

mimbar \Arab. minbar pulpit. 

mimmation \f. Arab. mim, name of the letter m + -ation, after nunnation. 

Minæan \f. L. Minæus, f. Arab. Ma‘in, + -an. 

minar \a. Arab. manar, f. root of nar fire. 

minaret \a. Arab. manarah, manarat (in Turkish pronunciation minare), f. root of nar fi-re: cf. 

minar. The immediate source may be F. minaret; cf. Sp. minarete, Pg. minareto... 

minuca \app. med.L.; cf. med.L. nucha in the same sense (? a. Arab. nukhkh marrow, or nukht 

spinal marrow). 

Mir \a. Hindi and Pers. mir, ad. Arab. amir leader, commander: see ameer, emir. 

mirach \med.L., a. Arab. maraqq pl., ‘the thin or tender parts of the belly’ (Lane), f. root raqqa 

to be thin or weak. 

miramolin \Sp., corruption of Arab. amiru'l muminin ‘Commander of the Faithful’. 

mirza \Pers. mirza, mirza, short for mirzad, f. mir (a. Arab. amir: see ameer, emir) a prince + 

zad born. 

miskal \Arab. mithqal (locally misqal, mitqal), f. thaqala to weigh... 

mistico \Sp. = Cat. mestech, taken to be a. Arab. misteh (lit. flat surface) broad basket, large 

frying-pan, etc., f. sataha to flatten... 

Mofussil \Hindustani mufaççil, ad. Arab. mufaççal, pa. pple. of faççala to divide, separate. 

Mogul \a. Pers. and Arab. mugal, mugul, a mispronunciation of the native name Mongol... 

mohair \Ultimately a. Arabic mukhayyar cloth of goats' hair (lit. ‘select, choice’, pa. pple. of 

khayyara to choose)... 

Moharram \Arab. muharram (lit. ‘sacred’). 

mokaddam \Arab. muqaddam, pa. pple. of qaddama to place in front. 

Mongibel \ad. Mongibello (for Monte Gibello: from Arab. jabal mountain), the mod. Sicilian 

name. 

monsoon \(...) a. Pg. monção, in 16th c. also moução (Yule), believed to be a. Arab. mausim 

lit. season, hence monsoon, f. wasama to mark. The word is found in all the Rom. langs... 

moolvee \Urdu mulvi, a. Arab. maulawiyy, properly an adj., judicial, but used as n., = maula 

mullah, of which it is a derivative. 

moonshee \Urdu munshi, a. Arab. munshi‘, pres. pple. of ansha‘a to compose, causative of 

nasha‘a to grow up. 

moonsif \Urdu, a. Arab. munçif just, honest (pres. pple. of ançafa to be bisected, be impartial, 

from niçf half). 

Morocco \The European name (= It. Marocco, Sp. Marruecos, F. Maroc) of the ‘sultanate’ or 

‘empire’ called in Arabic Magrib-al-Aqça ‘Extreme West’, comprising the north-western part 

of Africa. The name properly belongs not to the country but to the chief city; its native form is 

Marrakesh. 

morphil \a. F. morfil, marfil, a. Sp. marfil (= Pg. marfim), of Arabic origin (fil elephant; the 

first element is obscure). 

88

mosque \(...) Cf. early mod.F. mosquete, Sp. mezquita, Pg. mesquita, It. meschita. Eng. writers 

have occas. used forms directly taken from Arabic, as masjid, mosged, muschid... 

motazilite \f. Arab. mu , tazil seceder (active pple. of i , tazala to secede, 8th conj. of , azala to go) 

+ -ite. 

moucharaby \Fr.; corruptly a. mod.Arab. mashrabiyyah (Dozy). 

Mozarab \a. Sp. Mozárabe (med.L. Mosarabes pl., and with etymologizing perversion 

Mixtarabes), corrupt form of Arab. musta , rib, ‘would-be Arab’, active pple. of a verb of the 

10th (desiderative) conjugation f. , arab Arab. 

Mu‘allaqát \a. Arab. mu‘allaqát, lit. suspended odes, pl. of mu , allaqa. 

Mudéjar \a. Sp. mudéjar, f. Arab. mudajjan permitted to remain. 

mudim \Malay (now modin), prob. ad. Arab. mu‘adhdhin muezzin. 

mudir \Turk. use of Arab. mudir, active pple. of adara to administer, govern (Dozy), causative 

of dara to go round. 

muezzin \Arabic mu‘adhdhin, active pple. of adhdhana, 2nd conjug. (frequentative) of adhana 

to proclaim, f. udhn ear... 

mufti \Arab. mufti, active pple. of afta (4th conjug. of fata) to give a fetwa or decision on a 

point of law. 

mujahidin \a. Pers., Arab. mujahidin, pl. of mujahid one who fights in a jihad or holy war: cf. 

mujtahid. 

mujtahid \Pers. ‘one who strives hard to acquire correct and sound views’, ‘one who has 

arrived at the highest degree in knowledge of the law’; Arab. ‘one who exerts himself’. 

mukhtar \ad. Arab. mukhtar chosen. 

mukim \Malay, ad. Arab. muqim remaining, resident. 

mullah \a. Pers., Turk., and Urdu mulla, corrupt pronunciation of Arab. maula... 

mummy \a. F. momie, (= Sp., Pg. momia, It. mommia), ad. med.L. mumia, a. Arab. mumiya 

an embalmed body, a mummy, f. mum wax (used in embalming). 

murid \Arab. murid. 

musa \mod.L., from Arabic: see muse n.4 

muse \Utimately a. Arab. mauz, mauzah banana. 

musellim \Arab. musallim, lit. paymaster, act. pple. of sallama to pay, 2nd conjug. of salama... 

musk \a. F. musc (13th c. in Hatz.-Darm.) = Pr. musc, Sp. (...) prob. a. Pers. mushk, whence 

Arab. misk (whence, with Arab. prefixed article, Sp. almizcle, Pg. almiscle, almiscar); the 

ultimate source is perh. Sk. mushka (Hindi mushk) scrotum, testicle... 

Muslim \a. Arab. muslim, active pple. of aslama, of which the noun of action is islam... 

Muslim \repr. the Arab. pl. (oblique case) muslimin 

muslin \a. (...) (also used as appellative = muslin) the town of Mosul (in Arabic mauçil), where 

muslin was formerly made. Cf. Sp. muselina... 

musnud \Urdu masnad, a. Arab. misnad, f. sanada to lean against. 

mussal \Urdu (Arabic) mash , al. 

Mussulman \a. Pers. musulman, primarily an adj. f. Pers. (a. Arab.) muslim... 

mutessarif \Turk., ad. Arab. mutaçarrif governor of a sanjak. 

myrrh \(...) of Semitic origin (Arab. murr, Heb. mor). 

nacarat \F. nacarat, supposed to be ad. Sp. and Pg. nacarado, f. nacar nacre. If this etym. is 

correct, the reference is to that species of pinna which is distinguished by its red colour; but the 

word has also a striking resemblance to Arab. naka , at, a red flower used in dyeing. 

nadir \= F., Sp., Pg., and It. nadir, ad. Arab. nadir opposite to, over against (also used as n.). In 

sense 2 used ellipt. for nadir es-semt ‘opposite to the zenith’. 

naib \Arab. na‘ib a deputy: cf. nabob and nawab. 

naker \(...) ad. Arab. naqarah, Pers. naqara... 

naphe \a. F. naphe, naffe = Sp. nafa, nefa, It. nanfa, lanfa, ad. Arab. nafha(h) fragrance, 

perfume. 

naphtha \a. L. naphtha, a. Gr. náftha, possibly of Oriental origin (but Arab. and Pers. naft is 

prob. from Greek)... 

nard \(...) of Oriental origin: cf. Heb. ner'd' (pl. n'radim), Arab. and Pers. nardin... 

naskhi \Arab. naskhi, f. nasakha to copy. 

Nasrani \Arab. Naçrani, pl. Naçara cogn. with Nazarene a. and n. 

nastalik \Pers., f. Arab. naskhi + ta , liq hanging. 

89

natron \a. F. natron (1665), a. Sp. natron, ad. Arab. natrun, nitrun, ad. Gr. nítron nitre. Cf. 

anatron. 

nazar \Urdu (Pers., Arab.) nazr gift, f. Arab. nazara he vowed. 

nazir \a. Pers. or Urdu (from Arab.) nazir superintendent, inspector, etc. f. nazar sight, vision. 

nebbuk \Arab. nebq, nebeq, nebiq, the fruit of the lote-tree, or the tree itself. 

nenuphar \a. med.L. nenuphar, -far (It. and Sp. nenufar, F. nénufar), ad. Arab.-Pers. ninufar, 

nilufar... 

nil \a. Arab. and Pers. nil: see anil. 

Nizam \Urdu and Turkish nizam, ad. Arab. nidam, order, disposition, arrangement, etc.; in 

sense 1 used as an abbreviation of the title nizam-al-mulk ‘governor of the empire’. 

noria \Sp. noria, ad. Arab. na , urah. 

nucha \a. med.L. nucha, a. Arab. nukha , spinal marrow. Hence also It., Sp., and Pg. nuca... 

nunnation \ad. mod.L. nunnation-em, f. nun the Arabic name of the letter n. 

nuphar \a. med. or mod.L. nuphar, ad. Arab.-Pers. nufar, a reduced form of nilufar or ninufar 

nenuphar. 

ogive \(...) of uncertain origin; it has been conjecturally referred to F. auge trough; to It., Sp., 

Pg. auge ‘the highest point of any planet’ (Florio), culmination, highest point, ad. Arab. auj 

(prop. a term of Astrology or Astronomy); and to L. augere to increase, augment (Littré). 

oka \a. It. oca, occa (1709 in Somavera), F. oque, ocque, ad. Turk. oqah, Arab. uqiyah... 

old man \tr. Arab. shaikh-al-jibal 

olibanum \Note. Various suggestions have been offered to account for the med.L. form: e.g. 

that the word has been influenced by oleum oil, or was perh. contracted from oleum libani (...); 

that it is derived from or influenced by the Arabic al-luban. 

Omani \Arab., f. Oman name of a coastal region in the south-east of the Arabian peninsula + -i 

adj. suffix. 

omdah \ad. Arabic cumdah column, support, trustworthy authority, village-chief, f. root cmd 

to support. 

omlah \ad. Arab. umala, pl. of amil aumil, ‘operator, agent’; properly used as a collective pl.; 

but sometimes erron. with Eng. pl. -s added. 

omrah \Urdu umara, orig. Arab. pl. of amir ‘commander, lord’, but used already in Urdu in 

sense ‘lord or grandee of a court’, with pl. umarayan ‘omrahs’ (Yule). 

optics \(...) The med.L. optica occurs c 1160 in the Sicilians, Henricus Aristippus who speaks 

of Euclidis Optica, and Eugenius who translated from Arabic the Optiká of Ptolemy under the 

title Optica Ptolomæi... 

orange \(...) The Sp. and Gr. are ad. Arabic naranj... 

Osmanli \a. Turkish osmanli adj. ‘of or belonging to Osman’ (the Turkish pronunciation of the 

Arabic personal name , Othman)... 

Ottoman \(...) ad. Arab. , uthmani or , othmani, adj. from , othman, name of the founder of the 

Turkish dynasty and empire... 

oud \ad. Arab. , ud, lit. ‘wood’. 

oued \Fr. rendering of Arabic wadi wadi, wady. 

Ouled Nail \Fr., f. Ouled Naïl, ad. Arab., lit. ‘sons of Nail’. 

pan-Arabism \f. pan- + Arab n. and a. + -ism. 

paradise \(...) a. OPers. pairidaeza enclosure, park, f. pairi around + diz to mould, form; 

whence also Armenian pardez, late Heb. pardes (Neh. ii. 8 the park of the Persian king, also 

Eccl. ii. 5); in mod.Pers. and Ar. firdaus garden, paradise... 

paranjah \a. Russ. parandzhá, ult. f. Arabic. 

parasang \(...) of Persian origin, the corresponding mod.Pers. word being farsang, Arab. 

farsakh; in mod.F. parasange, farsange. 

pasha \Turkish pasha (...) In Turkish there is no hard-and-fast line between the breath and 

voice stops; and in the case of p, b, the confusion is increased by the absence of p in Arabic and 

the occasional replacement of Persian and Turkish p by b... 

pasteque \a. F. pastèque (...) = Pg. pateca, Sp. albudeca, badea, ad. Arab. al-battikha, vulgar 

form of -bittikha; cf. Heb. abattiakh, Syr. pattikh (Numbers xi. 5). 

penide \a. F. pénide (15th c. in Godef.) (...); supposed to be ad. Pers. panid refined sugar, in 

Arab. al-fanid: see alphenic... 

people \tr. Arab. Ahl al-Kitab 

90

peridot \a. F. péridot (...). The uncertain forms and foreign appearance of the word have 

suggested an Oriental origin; but there appears to be no valid basis for the conjecture of its 

identity with Arabic faridat ‘pearl, precious stone’. 

Persian \orig. ME. Persien, a. F. persien (...), OPers. Parsa, mod.Pers. Pars, Arab. Fars. In 16th 

c. conformed to the Eng. type in -ian; sometimes also to F. persan. 

pia mater \med.L.; a somewhat incorrect rendering of the Arabic name umm raqiqah ‘thin or 

tender mother’ (Ibn Duraid, a.d. 933): cf. names of other investing membranes in umm mother, 

esp. dura mater. (Fanciful explanations of the name are frequent in western writers: cf. quot. 

1548.) 

pistick \A deriv. of pistachio (in some of its forms; cf. also pistack), perh. assimilated to fistic, 

a form of the same word through Arabic... 

popinjay \In ME. earliest forms a. OF. (and mod.F.) papegai (12th c.) (...) Sp. papagayo, Pg. 

papagaio (...). Other forms were med.Gr. papagás, Arab. babagha, babbagha, Pers. also bapgha, 

med.L. papagen, MHG. papegân. Probably the med.Gr. and Arabic represent the earliest form, 

due to an imitation of the cry of the bird in some African or other non-European language. The 

form in -gayo, -gaio, -gai, appears to have arisen by assimilation to the name of the European 

chattering bird, the jay, med.L. gaius, Sp. gayo, Pr. and ONF. gai... 

porte \a. F. porte, in full la Sublime Porte = It. la Porta Sublima, transl. Turkish (Arabic) bab i- 

, 

aliy, lit. ‘the sublime, high, or lofty gate’, the official title of the central office of the Ottoman 

government... 

primum mobile \med.L., lit. ‘first moving thing’, L. prim-us first, mobilis movable: see prime 

a. and mobile n.1 and a. Primum mobile (also primus motus, primus motor) was an 1112th c. 

rendering of the Arabic al-muharrik al-awwal, the first mover or moving (thing), cited from 

Avicenna (a 1037) by Shahrastani (a 1153). The L. occurs in Thomas Aquinas Comment. in 

Aristot. De Cælo ii. ix. §1, xv. §7... 

qasida \Arab. qaçida. 

quaiss kitir \ad. Egyptian Arab. kwayyis, dim. cl. Arab. kayyis fine + kathir, f. cl. Arab. 

kathiran very. 

quintal \a. OF. quintal (13th c.), pl. quintaus, Sp. and Pg. quintal, It. quintale, med.L. quintale 

(-allus), quintile, ad. Arab. qintar: see kantar. 

raad \Arabic. 

rabi \Urdu rabi (ad. Arab. rabi , ). 

rabite \Aphetic for Arabite (in Gen. & Exod. 1203), f. Arab + -ite1. So also med.L. rabitus or 

rabita (Du Cange), MHG. râvît, ON. rábít-r. 

rafik \ad. Arab. rafiq. 

rahat lokum \a. Turk. rahat lokum, ad. Arab. rahat al-hulqum throat's ease. 

Ramadan \a. Arab. ramadan (hence Turk. and Pers. ramazan), f. ramada to be heated or hot 

(see note to def.). 

rambla \Sp., ad. Arab. ramla, lit. ‘sandy ground’. 

ras \a. Amharic ras head, chief, from Arab.: cf. reis2, rais. 

rayah \a. Arab. ra , iyah flock or herd, subjects, peasants, f. ra , a to pasture or feed... 

razzia \a. F. razzia, ad. Algerian Arab. ghaziah, var. Arab. ghazwah, ghazah war, battle, 

military expedition, raid against infidels, f. ghasw to make war. Cf. Pg. gazia, gaziva, from the 

same source... 

realgar \a. med.L. realgar, ultimately from Arab. rehj al-ghar ‘powder of the cave’: cf. Sp. 

rejalgar, F. réalgar (earlier realgal, reagal, riagal), It. realgale, and see resalgar. 

ream \(...) Sp. and Pg. resma, It. (and med.L.) risma, ad. Arab. rizmah bale or bundle (of 

clothes, paper, etc.)... 

rebab \a. colloq. Arab. rebab, classical Arab. rabab in the same sense: cf. ribibe n. 

redif \Turkish, a. Arab. redif one who follows, a second. 

reis \a. Arab. ra , is (also ra , is and ra , is) chief, f. ras head: hence also F. réis, raïs, Pg. arraes, 

arrais, Sp. arraez. 

resalgar \ad. Arab. rahj al-ghar (...), the j being represented by s, as in It. risigallo... 

ressalah \ad. Urdu (Arab.) risalah, f. Arab. arsala he sent. 

retama \Sp. retáma, ad. Arab. retam, pl. of retem. 

ribes \a. med.L. ribes (whence also F., Sp., and It. ribes, Da. ribs), ad. Arab. ribas (also ribaz, 

riwaz, Pers. ribaj), sorrel. The meaning of the Arab. word was retained in med.L... 

91

ibibe \ad. OF. rubebe, rebebe, It. ribebba (Florio), ad. Arab. rebab. 

rice \(...) probably of Oriental origin. Sp. and Pg. arroz is from Arab. aruz(z, uruz(z. 

Rigel \a. Arab. rijl foot. 

rob \a. mod.L. or F. rob, = Sp. rob, Pg. robe, arrobe, It. rob, robbo; also G. and older Da. rob. 

The ultimate source is Arab. robb, rubb or Pers. rob, rub fruit-syrup. 

roc \ad. Arab. rokh, rukh(kh: hence also F. rock, Sp. rocho, Pg. roco; Sp., It., Pg. ruc. The older 

source for the word is the account of Madagascar in Marco Polo iii. 185 (‘et l'appellent les 

genz de ces isles ruc’); in mod. use it is partly from the Arabian Nights. 

rotl \a. Arab. retl, ratl, which is supposed by some to be an alteration of Gr. lítra. 

rotolo \a. It. rotolo (pl. rotoli), ad. Arab. ratl. 

Roumi \ad. Arab. rumi Byzantine, Pers. rumi Turk, Greek. 

ruba‘i \Arabic ruba , iyah, f. ruba , iy composed of four elements. 

rubb \a. Piedmontese rub, rubbo, ad. Arab. rub , : see arroba. 

Rufai \Turk. Rufai, ad. Arab. rifa , i, f. the name of Ahmad al-Rifa , i (d. 1183), the founder of 

this order. 

Rus \Russ. Rus' (see Russ n. and a.), Arab. Rus... 

ryot \Urdu ra , iyat, raiyat, ultimately of Arabic origin: see rayat and rayah. 

Saadian \f. Arab. Sâadi, Sa‘di, the name of a 16th- and 17th-cent. dynasty of sharifs in 

Morocco + -an. 

Sabean \f. L. Sabæ-us,(...), Arabic Saba‘ = Heb. Sheba, the ancient name of the people of 

Yemen; by Gr. and Roman writers imagined to be the name of the capital city) +-an... 

sabaton \a. Pr. sabató (...), augmentative of sabata = F. savate, Sp. zapata boot (also za-pato 

shoe), Pg. sapata, It. ciabatta shoe. Cf. med.L. sabbatum. The ultimate origin of the Rom. word 

is obscure. It exists in Arabic (sabbat, çabbat, etc., Dozy II. 626), in Berber (sappat, ibid.), and 

in Basque (zapata), but is prob. in all these a loan-word from Spanish. 

Sabian \f. Arab. çabi , + -an. According to Nöldeke, the word represents the pr. pple. of the 

Aramaic ç , ba , to baptize... 

sabkha \ad. Arab. sabkhah a saline infiltration, salt flat. 

Safaitic \f. the Arab. place-name Safa in Syria, SE of Damascus + -itic (see -ite1). 

safari \Swahili, journey, expedition, f. Arab. safar journey. 

safflower \a. Du. saffloer(...) a. early It. saffiore, also asfiore, asfrole, zaffrole, etc. (Yule). The 

ultimate source is obscure: the Arabic , uçfur is prob. a foreign word assimilated to açfar 

yellow... 

saffron \a. F. safran (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), whence also (...). The ultimate source is Arab. 

za , faran (adopted unchanged in Turkish, Persian, and Hindustani); also Jewish Aramaic 

za , perana). The Arabic word with prefixed definite article, azza , faran, is represented by Sp. 

azafran, Pg. açafrão... 

Sahara \a. Arab. çahra desert. 

sahib \Urdu, use of Arab. çahib, orig. ‘friend’. 

sahib \Arab. çahibah 

Sahidic \f. Arab. sa , id, with article as-sa , id, lit. ‘the Fortunate’, a name for Upper Egypt+-ic. 

Sahrawi \a. Arab. çahrawi (whence Sp. saharaui) of the desert, f. çahra' desert, Sahara. 

saker \a. F. sacre, ad. Sp., Pg. sacro, It. sagro, prob. a. Arab. çaqr. In form the Sp., Pg. and It. 

word coincides with the adj. repr. L. sacer sacred; it has in consequence been supposed to mean 

‘sacred falcon’ (cf. mod. scientific Latin Falco sacer)... 

sakia \Arab. saqiyah, fem. pr. pple. of saqa to irrigate. In North Africa the q is pronounced (g), 

whence the form sageer. 

salaam \Arab. salam (hence in Pers. and Urdu) = Heb. shalom peace. 

salep \= Sp. salép, Pg. salepo, a. Turkish salep, a. Arabic tha , leb (pronounced in some parts 

sa , leb), taken to be a shortening of khasyu 'th-tha , lab orchis (lit. ‘fox's testicles’)... 

saluki \ad. Arab. seluqi, f. Saluq the name of a town in the Yemen. 

salvatella \med.L. salvatella (It., Pg. salvetella, F. salvatelle), f. salvare to save + dim. suffix 

(see -el2); framed to render Arab. al-usailim, a derivative with dim. form from the root s-l-m 

implying safety, salvation, etc. 

sambouse \Persian sanbusah (phonetically samb-), whence Arab. sanbusah... 

sambuk \Origin uncertain: in Arab. written sanbuq. Cf. Pg. zambuco, It. sambuco. 

samiel \a. Turkish samyel, f. sam a. Arab. samm (see simoom) + yel wind. 

92

sandal \a. med.L. sandalum = Sp. sándalo, Pg., It. sandalo (...). The ultimate source appears to 

be Skr. çandana (Hindi çandan); cf. Arab. çandal... 

sandal \a. Turkish and Persian sandal, Arab. çandal (Dozy)... 

sandarac \ad. L. sandarac-a, (...) Sp., Pg. sandaraca (senses 1 and 2), (...) in mod.L. sandaracha 

Arabum, represents Arab. sandarus (Dozy, from P. de Alcalá 1505), also sandalus (Freytag, 

from Golius); but the word cannot be native Arabic... 

sansa \Marungu (Bantu), ad. Arab. çanj, Pers. sinj cymbals. 

santir \Arab. santir (Pers., Turkish santur), corruption of Gr. psaltérion... 

saphena \med.L. saphena, sophona, ad. Arab. çafin saphena; also ‘a vein lying deep in the 

arm’ (Lane). Cf. F. saphène (1314 in Hatz.-Darm.), Pg., It. safena... 

sapphire \a. OF. safir (12th c. in Littré), mod.F. saphir (Pr. saphir, safir, Sp. zafir, zafiro, Pg. 

safira, zafira, It. zaffiro), ad. L. sapphir-us (...) prob. a. some Semitic form, (...) The word, 

however, does not appear to be ultimately of Semitic origin.(...) The Pers. saffir and mod.Arab. 

çafir may be from Greek. 

Saracen \In OE., ad. late L. Saraceni pl; in ME., a. OF. Sar(r)azin, -cin, mod.F. Sarrasin (= It. 

Saracino, Sp. Saraceno, Pg. Sarraceno) (...) The ultimate etymology is uncertain. The 

derivations from Arabic commonly given (of which the most usual is Arab. sharqi eastern, 

oriental, f. sharq sunrise) are not well founded... 

saraf \Pers., etc., a. Arab. çarraf, f. çarafa to exchange... 

sarsar \Arab. çarçar a cold wind. 

sash \Originally shash, a. Arab. shash muslin, turban-‘sash’ (Dozy). 

satin \a. F. satin (...). Cf. Pg. setim (? from It.) (...). The word cannot be connected 

etymologically with the app. synonymous Arab. zaituni, f. Zaitun name of a city in China (the 

locality of which is disputed)... 

Saudi \ad. Arab. sa‘udi, f. the name Sa‘ud + -i. 

sayer \Urdu, a. Arab. sa‘ir, pres. pple. either of sara to go or of sa‘ara to remain... 

sayyid \Arab. sayyid, lit. ‘lord’, ‘prince’. Cf. Cid. 

scarlet \Aphetic (...) the other Rom. forms are later: Sp., Pg. escarlate (...) (The form saqirlat, 

given in some Arabic dictionaries, is modern and prob. adopted from some European 

language.) 

sea-conny \App. a perversion (after sea n. and perh. con v.2) of Pers. sukkani, f. Arab. sukkan 

rudder. The word appears in 16th c. Pg. as socões (pl.)... 

sebesten \a. Arab. sabastan, a. Persian sapistan. Said to have been originally seg-pistan, lit. 

‘dog's teats’... 

sedekah \Malay, f. Arab. çadaqa. 

seif \ad. Arab. saif, lit. ‘sword’. 

selamlik \Turk., lit. ‘place of greeting’, f. selâm a. Arab. salam salaam n.) + -lik place. 

selictar \repr. Turkish pronunciation of Pers. silahdar, f. Arab. silah (pl. of silh weapon) + Pers. 

-dar having. 

semsem \Arab. simsim, prob. ad. Gr. sésamon. 

senna \mod.L. senna, sena, a. Arab. sana... 

Senussi \Arab. sanusi, the name Senussi. 

Senussia \Arab. sanusiya. 

sephen \a. mod.L. sephen (specific name), a. Arab. safan shagreen. 

sequin \a. F. sequin, ad. It. zecchino, f. zecca the mint (= Sp. seca), ad. Arab. sikkah die for 

coining, whence sicca1. 

serab \ad. Arab. sarab. 

serai \Anglo-Indian, repr. Urdu (orig. Arab.) çurahi. 

seraphim \a. late L. seraphim (Vulg.) (...) (...) Of those who reject the identity of saraph 

‘seraph’ with saraph ‘fiery serpent’, some refer the former to the root of the Arabic sharafa to 

be lofty or illustrious. Phonologically this is unobjectionable, but on other grounds it is now 

generally abandoned. 

seraphin \a. Pg. xerafim, xarafim, a. Arab. sharifi, orig. the name of a gold coin... 

seraskier \repr. Turkish pronunciation of Pers. ser , asker head of the army, f. ser head + Arab. 

, askar army. 

serdab \Pers. (hence Arab.) serdab grotto, ice-house, cellar. 

sergelim \a. Pg. gergelim, zirgelin, a. Arab. juljuli, also juljulan. 

93

sericon \a. med.L. sericon (indeclinable). (...) That the word originally stood for some real 

chemical substance is not improbable, but its proper meaning and etymology (perh. Arabic: ? 

cf. zircon) are obscure. 

serir \Arab. serir dry. 

sesame \In early use, a. or ad. L. sesamum (see sesamum) (...), prob. of oriental origin, but the 

relation to the Semitic forms (Syriac shushma, Jewish Aramaic shumshema, Arab. simsim) is 

not clear (...) The mod. currency and form of the word are due to translations of the Arabian 

Nights from Fr. (sésame)... 

sesse \a. F. sesse, a. Arab. shash: see sash n.1 

setwall \a. AF. zedewale = OF. citoual, citual, sotoval (Palsgr.), also citouar(t, etc., ad. med.L. 

zedoale, var. zedoarium, ad. Arab. zedwar: see zedoary. 

seyal \Arab. sayal. 

shadda \a. Arab. shadda, lit. strengthening. 

Shafiite \f. Arab. shafi , i + -ite1. 

shahada \Arab. shahada testimony, evidence. 

shahid \Arab. shahid witness, martyr. 

Shaitan \Arab. shaitan, corruptly a. Heb. satan satan. 

shamal \Arab. shamal left (hand), north, north wind. (Sometimes confused with samiel.) 

Sharia \Arab. shari , a. 

shauri \a. Swahili, f. Arab. shura. 

sheikh \Arabic shaikh properly ‘old man’, f. shakha to grow or be old. Cf. OF. esceque, seic, F. 

cheik, scheik, Sp. jeque, Pg. xeque. 

Sheikha \Arab. shaikha. 

Sherarat \Arab. 

Sherari \Arab. 

sherbet \a. Turkish and Persian sherbet, a. Arab. sharbah, f. shariba to drink. Cf. sorbet. 

shereef \Arab. sharif noble, glorious, f. sharafa to be exalted. 

shereefa \Arab. sharifah, fem. of sharif, see prec. 

sheregrig \repr. African pronunciation of Arab. shiriqraq. 

sherifi \Arab. sharifiy (Dozy), f. sharif (see shereef). Cf. seraph2, seraphin. 

sherryvallies \The proximate history is obscure, but the word must be an adoption of some one 

of the many forms of a widely diffused word of oriental origin, signifying a kind of trousers: 

cf. Arab. sirwal, now commonly sharwal (pl. sarawil, sharawil), whence Sp. zaragüelles pl., Pg. 

ceroulas pl.)... 

sherwal \Arab. sharwal: see sherryvallies. 

Shiah \Arab. shi , ah sect, f. root sha , a, in the 3rd conjugation to follow. The (b) forms, strictly 

speaking, represent a distinct word, Arab. shiya , iy a member of the Shiah sect, a Shiite. 

Shiite \f. shi- in Shiah + -ite. (The 18th c. form Sciaite seems to be f. Arab. shiya , iy a Shiite). 

shittah \Heb. shittah. The tt is for prehistoric nt; cf. Arab. sant, OEgyptian sont, acacia. 

shrab \Urdu, a. (through Persian) Arab. sharab wine, or any beverage, f. shariba to drink. Cf. 

sherbet, shrub n.2 

shrub \Variant of shrab, or metathetic ad. Arab. shurb drink, draught. 

shufti \f. Arab. shufti have you seen?, f. shaf to see. 

sicca \a. Pers. (Arab.) sikkah a die for coining, the impression on money. 

sidi \a. Urdu sidi, Marathi siddhi, ad. Arab. sayyidi ‘my lord’: see Sayyid. 

sief \ad. Arab. shiyaf, f. shwf to see, to adorn oneself. 

silladar \a. Urdu (Pers.) silahdar armour-bearer, squire, f. Arab. silah arms, armour. 

simoom \a. Arab. semum, f. the root samm to poison. With the form simoon cf. F. semoun, 

simoun. 

sim-sim \Arab.: see sesame. 

Sinean \irreg. f. late L. Sinæ (...), prob. ad. Arab. Sin, the empire of China. 

sine \ad. L. sinus a bend, bay, etc.; also, the hanging fold of the upper part of a toga, the bosom 

of a garment, and hence used to render the synonymous Arab. jaib, applied in geometry as in 

sense 2. Cf. F. sinus, Sp. and It. seno. 

siphac \a. med.L. siphac, syphac (...), a. Arab. çafaq, from the root çafaqa to cover. 

sirocco \a. It. sirocco, scirocco (also scilocco), = Sp. siroco (also xaloque), Pg. xarouco, (...), 

ad. Arab. sharq east, f. sharaqa (the sun) rose. Cf. prec. 

soda \a. med.L. soda, ad. Arab. çoda , , f. çada , to split. 

sofa \= F. sofa, sopha, It., Sp., and Pg. sofa, ad. Arab. çoffah. 

94

soldan \a. OF. soudan (...)Sp. soldan, Pg. soldão, ad. Arab. sultan: see sultan. 

Sophy \ad. Pers. çafi (also çafawi), the surname of the ruling dynasty of Persia from c 1500 to 

1736, derived from the Arabic epithet çafi-ud-din ‘purity of religion’, given to an ancestor of 

Ismail Safi, the founder of the dynasty... 

souk \Fr., ad. Arab. suq market-place. 

spinach \ (...) Sp. espinaca, of doubtful origin. The difficult problem of the ultimate origin of 

the word is complicated by variation of the ending in the Romanic languages. (...) By older 

writers the stem of these forms was supposed to be L. spina, in allusion to the prickly seeds of 

a common species. De Vic considers the various forms to be adoption of Arab isfinaj, Pers. 

isfanaj, ispanak, aspanakh (Richardson), but it is doubtful whether these are really native 

words... 

subah \Urdu = Arab. çubah. 

subeth \a. med.L. subet(h), ad. Arabic subat ‘somnus in capite apparens’, lethargy, f. sabata to 

rest (cf. Sabbath). Cf. obs. F. subet. 

Sudan \Name for the part of Africa lying between the Sahara and the Equator, orig. embracing 

the whole region as far west as the Atlantic Ocean, but now restricted to the country lying to 

the south of Egypt, a. Arab. sudan, pl. of suda black. 

sudd \Arab. sudd, n. of action to sudd to obstruct. 

Sudder \a. Urdu= Arab. çadr foremost or highest part of a thing, chief place or seat, etc. 

Suez \Arab. al-Suways 

suffragi \a. sufragi, repr. Egyptian Arab. pronunc. Turk. sofraji, f. Arab. sufra food, diningtable 

+ Turk. agent-suffix -ji. 

Sufi \a. Ar. çufi lit. ‘man of wool’, f. çuf wool (see Margoliouth Early Devel. Mohamm., 1914, 

141). Cf. F. sofi, soufi. It has often been erron. associated with Sophy1, q.v. 

sugar \a. OF. çucre (...), ad. Arab. sukkar (with prefixed article assukkar, whence Sp. azucar, 

Pg. assucar)... 

sugar-candy \ad. F. sucre candi (in which candi was at an early date apprehended as a pa. 

pple.; cf. 15th c. chucre candit), corresp. to Sp. azucar candi, Pg. assucar candi (...) repr. Arab. 

sukkar sugar + qandi of sugar, f. qand sugar, a. Pers. kand... 

sulham \a. Arab. zulham. 

sulphur \a. (...) OSp. çufre, Pg. xofre (also, with Arabic article prefixed, OSp. açufre, Sp. 

azufre, Pg. enxofre):–L. sulfur(em), sulphur(em), whence also Du. sulfer, solfer. 

sultan \a. F. sultan (from 16th c.) or ad. med.L. sultanus, ad. Arab. sultan king, sovereign, 

queen, power, dominion... 

sultanin \ad. It. sultanino, or F. sultanin (cf. Pg. sultanim), ad. Arab. sultani sultany. 

sultany \ad. Arab. sultani adj. imperial, n. kingdom, sultanin, f. sultan Cf. med.L. soltania. 

sumach \a. OF. sumac(...) Sp. zumaque, Pg. sumagre, a. Arabic summaq. The form asimac in 

the first quot. represents Arab. as-summaq (with prefixed article). 

sumbul \a. F. sumbul, a. Arab. sunbul. 

sumpitan \a. Malay sumpitan, f. sumpit (see prec.). The possibility of connexion between the 

Malay sumpitan and Arabic sabatana (see cebratane) has been suggested. 

Sunna \a. Arab. sunnah (sunnat) form, way, course, rule. 

Sunni \a. Arab. sunni lawful, f. Sunna. 

sunnud \Urdu = Arab. sanad signature, deed, diploma, seal of magistrate, etc. 

sunt \Arab. sant. 

sura \a. Arab. surah. Cf. F. sura, surate. (The earliest examples represent the word with the def. 

art. prefixed, assurah.) 

surd \ad. L. surdus (in active sense) deaf, (in pass. sense) silent, mute, dumb, (of sound, etc.) 

dull, indistinct. The mathematical sense ‘irrational’ arises from L. surdus being used to render 

Gr. álogos (Euclid bk. x. Def.), app. through the medium of Arab. açamm deaf, as in jadhr 

açamm surd root. 

surdesolid \ad. mod.L. surdesolidus (...) The origin of mod.L. surdesolidus is obscure. In 

Zedler's Universal Lexicon, s.v. Dignitas, the term is given as the name of the 5th power 

‘according to the Arabs’, corresponding to quadratocubus, the name ‘according to Diophantus’; 

the 7th power is surdesolidum secundum, and the 11th surdesolidum tertium. If the term is of 

Arabic origin, it may = surde solidum, lit. deafly solid, i.e. of a power not ‘communicating 

with’, i.e. not derivable from, 2 or 3 or their powers (cf. the origin of mathematical L. surdus.). 

Swahili \lit. = pertaining to the coasts, f. Arab. sawahil, pl. of sahil coast... 

95

syce \ad. Arab. sa‘is, f. sus to tend a horse; in the 18th and 19th centuries, adopted from 

Hindustani into Anglo-Indian use. 

syrup \a. OF. sirop, cyrop, serop (from 13th cent.), mod.F. sirop (...) related to the southwestern 

Romanic forms (with or without Arabic article prefixed), Sp. jarope medicinal potion, 

bitter draught, jarabe, ajarabe syrup, Pg. xarope, enxarope, syrup; all ultimately from Arab. 

sharab wine or other beverage, syrup, shurb drink: see shrab, shrub n.2, sherbet. 

tabasheer \Arab., Pers., Urdu tabashir chalk, mortar. 

tabbouleh \ad. Arab. tabbula. 

tabby \In sense 1, a. F. tabis, earlier atabis (both 14th or early 15th c. in Godef.), Sp., Pg., 

med.L. attabi (M. Devic in Littré), app. a. Arab. , attabiy, name of a quarter of Bag-dad in 

which this stuff was manufactured, named after 'Attab, great-grandson of Omeyya... 

tabl \Arab.: see atabal. 

tabla \Hind., ad. Arab. tabl (see prec.). 

taboot \Hindi, a. Arab. tabut coffin, box, Ark of the Covenant. 

taboot \Arab., abbrev. of tabut raf‘ al-miyah Archimedes screw, or of tabut al-saqiya scoop 

wheel... 

tabor \a. OF. tabur (11th c.), tabour (1316th c.), beside tanbor, tambur (1415th c.), tambour 

(16th c.) = Sp. tambor (OSp. atambor), It. tamburo: the relations between the forms in ta- and 

those in tam-, tan- have not been clearly determined. The word is held to be of Oriental origin, 

and has been compared with Pers. tabirah, and taburak, both meaning ‘drum’, and with Arab. 

tanbur a kind of lute or lyre. The actual history is uncertain: see Dozy, and Devic in Littré; also 

Gaston Paris in Romania, 1902. 

tahalli \Arab. takhalli ornamenting. 

tahina \Arab., f. tahana to grind or crush. 

tahsildar \Urdu, f. Arab., Pers. tahçil collection + Pers. dar, agential suffix. 

taj \Arab. (Pers.) taj crown. 

Tajik \a. Pers. tajik one who is neither an Arab nor a Turk, a Persian. 

talak \a. Arab. talaq divorce. 

talayot \a. Cat. talaiot small watch-tower, ad. Arab. (Muslim Spain) tali‘at, pl. of tali‘a watchtower; 

cf. Arab. tali‘a with similar meaning. 

talc \a. F. talc (Palissy a 1590) or ad. med.L. talcum, = Pg., It. talco, Sp. talco, talque, ad. Arab. 

talq, mentioned a.d. 869 by Jahiz of Bassora, and by Serapion the elder (Syriac and Arabic), 

Rhazi, Avicenna, Ibn-el-Beithar 1248, etc. Held by Arabic scholars to be from Persian, where 

the form is talk... 

talha \a. Arab. talha (collect. pl. talh). 

taliq \Pers., Arab. ta , liq, lit. ‘hanging’. 

talisman \= F. talisman, of uncertain history; occurring in Fr. and Eng. considerably earlier 

than talisman2. It appears to be a corrupt or mistaken form of some Arabic, Persian, or Turkish 

spoken word, imperfectly caught by early travellers... 

talisman \= 17th c. F., Sp., Pg. talisman, It. talismano, ultimately representing Arab. til-sam, in 

same sense, ad. Gr. télesma telesm. The final -an is not accounted for. An Ara-bic pl. tilsaman, 

alleged by Diez s.v., and thence in various recent dictionaries, is an error: no such form exists in 

Arabic, Persian, or Turkish. The only Arabic form at all similar would be a relative adj. 

tilsimani (one) dealing with talismans, if this were in use. 

taluk \a. Urdu ta , alluq estate, tract of proprietary land, f. Arab. , alaqa to adhere, be affixed. 

tamarind \= Sp., Pg., It. tamarindo, med.L. tamarindus, ultimately ad. Arab. tamr-hindi, i.e. 

date of India, whence in the early herbalists and physicians tamar indi, in Marco Polo (Fr. version) 

tamarandi; in 13th c. F. tamarindes pl., mod.F. tamarin (15th c. in Hatz.-Darm.). 

tamasha \a. Arab., Pers., Urdu tamasha walking about for recreation or amusement, an 

entertainment, f. 6th conj. of masha(y) to walk. 

tamboura \app. ad. Pers. tanbur, Arab. tunbur, in same sense. 

tandour \In sense 1, = F. tandour, a. tandur, Turkish pronunc. of Pers. and Arab. tannur oven, 

portable furnace, a. Aramaic tannura, Heb. tannur, Assyrian tinuru furnace... 

tarada \ad. Arab. tarrada cruiser, swift war canoe. 

taraxacum \med.L. from Arabic, ultimately Persian. The Synonymia Arabo-Latina of Gerard 

of Cremona (died 1189) has ‘Tarasacon, species cichorei’. This appears to have been a 

corruption or misreading of the Arabic name tarakhshaqoq or tarkhshaqoq, itself according to 

the Burhan-i-Kati (native Persian lexicon), originally an arabicized form of the Persian talkh 

chakok ‘bitter herb’... 

96

tarboosh \a. Arabic tarbush; so called in Egypt (Freytag); in F. tarbouch. 

tare \a. F. tare (15th c. in Hatz.-Darm.) waste or deterioration in goods, deficiency, 

imperfection, also as in Eng., = med.L., It., Pr., Sp., Pg. tara, OSp. atara (Littré), ad. Arab. 

tarhah that which is thrown away, f. taraha to reject. 

tarette \a. OF. tarete, = med.L. tarida, tareta ‘navis onerariæ species, eadem quæ Tartana 

vocitata, ut quidam volunt’ (Du Cange), a. Arab. taridah ‘actuaria navis’... 

tarfa \a. Arab. tarfa. 

targe \In late OE. targe fem., targa masc.(...) Sp. and Pg. adarga, appear to be from Arab. aldarqah 

the shield of leather and wood.) 

tariff \a. It. tariffa ‘arithmetike or casting of accounts’ (Florio), ‘a book of rates for duties’ 

(Baretti), = Sp., Pg. tarifa, ad. Arab. ta , rif notification, explanation, definition, article, f. , arafa 

in 1st conj. to notify, make known. So F. tarif... 

tarragon \Given in 153848 as the English for med.L. tragonia and tarchon: cf. 16th c. (...). 

Sethus compiled from Arab sources, and his Gr. tarkhon represented Arab. tarkhon (in Ibn 

Beithar, Avicenna, Razi), altarcon in Gerard of Cremona, a 1187; according to Arabic 

lexicographers a foreign word... 

tartan \a. Fr. tartane (1632 in Hatz.-Darm.), a. It., = Sp., Pg. tartana, supposed by Diez to be 

derived from Arab. taridah: see tarette. But connecting evidence is wanting. 

tass \a. F. tartre = Sp., Pg., It. tartaro, med.L. tartarum (...), perh. of Arabic origin... 

tass \a. OF. tasse goblet (1380 in Godef.), in mod.F. cup = med.L. tassa (...), Sp. taza, Pg. taça, 

app. a. Arab. tass, tassah basin, usually held to be ad. Pers. tast cup, goblet. 

tazia \ad. Arab. ta , ziya consolation, mourning. 

tea \= F. thé, Sp. te, It. tè, Du. and Ger. thee, Da., Sw. te, mod.L. thea; ad. (perh. through 

Malay te, teh) Chinese, Amoy dialect te, in Fuchau tiä = Mandarin ch'a (in ancient Chinese 

prob. kia); whence Pg. and obs. Sp. cha, obs. It. cià, Russian chai, Pers., Urdu cha (10th c.), 

Arab. shay, Turkish chay. The Portuguese brought the form cha (which is Cantonese as well as 

Mandarin) from Macao. This form also passed overland into Russia. The form te (thé) was 

brought into Europe by the Dutch.. 

tecbir \Arab. tekbir ‘to magnify, proclaim the greatness of’; inf. of 2nd form of kabura to be 

great. 

tekke \a. Turk. tekke, Ottoman tekye (whence Arab. tak(k)iya), ad. Pers. takya pillow, place of 

repose, abode of a fakir. 

tell \a. Arab. tall a hillock. 

terjiman \ad. Arab. tarjaman: see dragoman, truchman. 

tezkere \Arab. tadhkirah, in Turkish tezkere, lit. memorandum, record, note, f. dhakara, in 

deriv. conj. to record, relate, remember = Heb. zakar to remember. 

Thamudic \f. Thamud (Arab. thamud) + -ic. 

tibbin \Arab. tibn. 

tincal \In form tincal, a. Malay tingkal:–Skr. tankana; in Pers., Arab., Urdu tankar, tinkar, 

whence the (b)-forms and altincar. 

tobe \a. Arab. thaub (...) a garment. 

torba \ad. Arab. turba dust, earth, soil. 

traffic \Note. It is clear that the verb and n. arose in the commerce of the Mediterranean, and in 

the language of one of the nations by or with whom this was carried on. (...). Etymologists are 

generally agreed in regarding the word as Romanic (...) Some have suggested for the word an 

origin in Arabic, referring it to the verb taraffaqa, which sometimes means ‘to seek profit’. 

trapezium \a. mod.L. trapezium, ad. Gr. trapézion, dim. of trápeza table, in geometry used by 

Euclid in the general sense (...) (The early Latin editions of Euclid 14821516 have not 

trapezium, but the Arabic helmariphe; trapezium is in the Basle ed. of 1546.) 

trona \a. Swed. trona (1773), app. from Arabic tron, apocopate form of natrun, natron, ad. Gr. 

nítron soda (Dozy). 

truchman \ad. med.L. turchemannus, (...), Sp. trujaman, ad. Arab. turjaman (also tarjuman, 

tarjaman), interpreter, the same word which through Gr. and med.L. appears as dragoman. The 

Arabic letter jim which is now generally j was orig. g, like Heb. gimel, the early form of the 

word being targuman, f. targama to translate: cf. Targum. 

tuba \Arab. (in Koran xiii. 28) tubah, supposed to be a. Aramaic tuba beatitude, Heb. tobah. 

Some commentators suppose a tree to be meant... 

tumbak \a. Arabic tun'bak, ad. F. tabac tobacco. 

97

turbeh \Turkish, a. Arab. turbah tomb, sepulchre. 

Turk \= F. Turc, fem. turque, It., Sp., Pg. Turco, -a, med.L. Turcus, -a, Byz. Gr. Toukos, Pers. 

(and Arab.) turk. A national name of unknown origin. Possibly the same as the Chinese 

equivalent Tu-kin, applied to a division of the Hiong-nu... 

turmeric \Origin obscure. (...) Some have suggested a corruption of the Persian-Arabic name 

kurkum ‘saffron’, whence Sp. curcuma; but the change seems too unlikely... 

turpeth \a. OF. turbit, -ith, turpet (F. turbith) or ad. med.L. turbith(um, turpethum, turpetum, 

ad. Pers. and Arab. turbid, -bed, whence also Pg., Sp. turbit... 

tutty \a. F. tutie 13th (...) = Sp. tutia, atutia, Pg. and med.L. tutia (erron. tucia); a. Arab. tutiya 

oxide of zinc (marked as a foreign word in Arabic lists, perh. Persian)... 

typhoon \Two different Oriental words are included here: (1) the (a)-forms (like Pg. tufão) are 

a. Urdu (Persian and Arabic) tufan a violent storm of wind and rain, a tempest, hurricane, 

tornado, commonly referred to Arab. tafa, to turn round (nouns of action tauf, tawafan), but 

possibly an adoption of Gr. tyfon typhon2; (2) the (b)- and g- forms represent Chinese tai fung, 

common dialect forms of ta big, and fêng wind... 

tyrse \Properly tirsé (Forskål, 1775), tyrsé (G. Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier), ad. Arab. tirsah, f. 

turs shield. 

ujamaa \Swahili, = consanguinity, brotherhood, f. jamaa family, a. Arab. jama`a group (of 

people), community. 

ulema \a. Arab. (also Turk. and Pers.) , ulema, pl. of , alim knowing, learned, f. , alama to know. 

Hence also Sp. Ulema, Pg. Ulemas, F. Uléma. 

umma \Arab. ‘umma people, community, nation. 

urs \a. Arab. ‘urs, lit. ‘marriage ceremony’. 

Usnea \med.L. (12th cent.), ad. Arab. and Pers. ushnah moss. Hence F. usnée (1530). 

vakeel \a. Urdu (Pers.-Arab.) vakil, wakil: cf. wakeel. 

vali \Turk. (Arab.) vali. Cf. wali. 

varan \ad. mod.L. Varan-us (...), f. Ar. waran, var. of waral, monitor lizard... 

Vega \a. Sp. or med.L. Vega, ad. Arab. waqi , falling, in (al nasr) al waqi , ‘the falling (vulture)’, 

the constellation Lyra. So F. Wéga. 

vilayet \Turkish, ad. Ar. welayeh, -yet district, dominion. 

vizier \ad. Turk. vezir, a. Arabic wazir, wezir, orig. a porter, hence one who bears the burden 

of government, a minister or lieutenant of a king, f. wazara to carry, carry on. Cf. F. visir, vizir, 

Sp. visir, Pg. visir, vizir, It. visire. See also alguazil. 

vizierat \ad. Arab. wizarat, -et, f. wezir, etc. vizier; or refashioned on vizier + -ate3. Cf. F. 

vizirat, viziriat. 

wadi \Arab. wadi. 

Wafd \a. Arab. wafd arrival, deputation, in full al-wafd al-miçri the Egyptian delegation. 

Wahabi \a. Ar. Wahhabi, f. Wahhab (see below). 

wakeel \See vakeel. (Properly the spelling with v should represent the Persian and Indian 

forms, and that with w the Arabic; but this is not observed in our examples). 

wakf \Arab. waqf. 

wali \Arab. wali (classical Arab. walin), subst. use of pres. pple. of wala to be foremost. 

water \The equivalent use is found in all the mod. Rom. and Teut. langs.; it may have come 

from Arabic, where this sense of ma’, water, is a particular application of the sense ‘lustre, 

splendour’ (e.g. of a sword). 

wazir \Arab. wazir, whence the Turkish vezir: see vizier. 

weli \Arabic wali, weli friend (of God), saint. 

wine \OE. wín (...); the nature of the connexion of the Indo-Eur. words with the Semitic (Arab., 

Ethiopic wain, Hebrew yayin, Assyrian înu) is disputed. 

wisdom tooth \Usually pl.; orig. teeth of wisdom, rendering mod.L. dentes sapientiæ, = Arab. 

adrasu 'lhikmi (f. dirs tooth, hikm wisdom), after Gr. sofronistêres... 

worral \a. Arab. waral. 

Yahudi \a. Arab. yahudi, Heb. yehudi Jew n. 

yashmak \Arab. yashmaq. 

Yemeni \ad. Arab. yamani, f. Yemen name of two States in the south-west of the Arabian 

peninsula. 

Yunani \a. Arab. yunani, lit. ‘Greek’. 

zakat \Pers. zakat, Turk. zekât, etc., ad. Arab. zakah. 

zaptieh \Turkish dabtiyeh, f. Arab. dabt administration, regulation. 

98

zarf \Arab. zarf vessel. 

zariba \Arab. zaribah pen or enclosure for cattle (zarb sheep-fold). 

zarnich \Arab. zarnikh, f. Pers. zerni orpiment, f. zer gold. 

zawiya \Arab. zawiya (hence F. zaouia) corner, prayer room. 

zecchin \ad. It. zecchino, f. zecca the mint at Venice = Sp. seca, a. Arab. sekkah coin. 

zedoary \ad. med.L. zedoarium, -ia (also zedu-), ad. Arab. zedwar... 

Zendik \a. Arab. zindiq atheist, fire-worshipper, disbeliever in a future state, etc.... 

zenith \a. OF. cenit(h (F. zénith) or med.L. cenit (cf. It. zenit, Sp. cenit, Pg. zenith, G. zenith, 

etc.), obscurely ad. Arab. samt, in samt ar-ras lit. way or path over the head (samt way, al the, 

ras head); cf. azimuth (al the, sumut pl. of samt). 

zenzic \ad. mod.L. zenzicus, f. zensus, Germanized f. census (1202 in Leon. of Pisa), transl. 

Arab. mal possessions, property, as used spec. in mathematics. Cf. It. censo (13th c.). 

zero \ad. F. zéro (1515 in Hatz.-Darm.) or its source It. zero, for zefiro, ad. Arab. çifr cipher n. 

ziarat \ad. Hindi f. Urdu, f. Arab. ziyarat pilgrimage. 

zibib \ad. Arab. zabib dried grapes, (in Egypt) zibib. 

ziczac \Ultimately a. Arab. zaqzaq, saqsaq (Dozy). 

zikr \ad. Arab. dhikr remembrance. 

ziraleet \Arabic; cf. zaghrata, zaghlata to utter the cries of joy called zaghrutah or zaghritah, pl. 

zagharit (Dozy). 

zoco \Sp., ad. Arab.: see souk. 

"Árabe" em Árbol de Lenguas do DRAE 

abacero, ra; abadí; abalorio; abarraz; abasí; abelmosco; abencerraje; abenuz; abismal1; 

acafelar; acebibe; acebuche; aceche; aceifa; aceite; aceituna; aceituní; acelga; acémila; 

acemite; acenefa; aceña; acequia; acerola; acetre; aciar; acíbar; acicalar; acicate; 

acidaque; acimut; ación; acirate; acitara; acólcetra; achacar; achaque; adafina; adalid; 

adaraja; adarga; adárgama; adarme; adarvar1; adarve; adaza; adefera; adehala; adelfa; 

adema; ademe; adermar; aderra; adiafa; adivas; adive; adobe1; adobe2; adoquín; ador; 

adra; aduana; aduar; adúcar; adufa; adufe; adul; adunia; adutaque; afice; aguajaque; 

agüela2; ajabeba; ajaquefa; ajaraca; ajarafe; ajebe; ajedrea; ajedrez; ajenuz; ajimez; 

ajomate; ajonjolí; ajorca; ajorrar; ajuagas; ajuar; al-; Alá; alacena; alacet; alacrán; 

aladar; aladroque; alafa; alafia; alahílca; alajor; alajú; alama1; alamar; alambique; 

alambor1; alambor2; alamín; alamud; alaqueca; alárabe; alarde; alarido; alarife; alarije; 

alaroz; alaroza; alatar; alatrón; alazán, na o alazano, na; alazor; albacara1; albacara2; 

albacea; albacora1; albacora2; albadena; albahaca; albahío, a; albaida; albanar; albanega; 

albaní; albañal; albaquía; albarán; albarazo; albarda; albardán; albardín; albaricoque; 

albarrada1; albarrada2; albarrán; albarrana; albarsa; albatoza; albayalde; albéitar; albenda; 

albengala; alberca; albihar; albitana; alboaire; albogue; alboheza; albohol; albollón; 

albóndiga; albórbola; alborga; albornía; albornoz; alboronía; alboroque; alborozo; albotín; 

albricias; albudeca; albufera; albur1; albur2; alcabala; alcabor; alcabtea; alcacel; alcaduz; 

alcafar; alcahaz; alcahuete, ta; alcaicería; alcaide; alcalde; álcali; alcaller; alcamiz; 

alcamonías; alcana; alcaná; alcancía; alcándara; alcandía; alcandora; alcanería; alcanfor; 

alcántara1; alcaparra; alcaraván; alcaravea; alcarceña; alcarchofa; alcaría; alcarraza; 

alcartaz; alcatara; alcatenes; alcatifa; alcatraz2; alcaucí o alcaucil; alcaudón; alcavela; 

alcazaba; alcázar; alcazuz; alcoba; alcohela; alcohol; alcoholar2; alcolla; alcor; alcora; 

Alcorán; alcorcí; alcorque1; alcorza; alcotán; alcotana; alcrebite; alcroco; alcubilla; 

alcuña; alcuza; alcuzcuz; alchub; aldaba; aldea; aldiza; alefriz; aleja; alejija; alema; 

alerce; aletría; aleve; aleya; alfaba; alfábega; alfadía; alfaguara; alfahar; alfaida; 

alfajeme; alfalfa; alfaneque1; alfanje; alfaque; alfaqueque; alfaquí; alfaquín; alfaraz; 

alfarda1; alfarda2; alfardón1; alfareme; alfarje; alfarnate; alfarrazar; alfaya; alfayate; 

alfazaque; alféizar; alfeñique; alferecía1; alférez; alferraz; alferza; alficoz; alfil1; alfil2; 

alfilel; alfinge; alfitete; alfiz; alfolí; alfombra1; alfombra2; alfóndega; alfonsario; 

alforfón; alforja; alforre; alforrocho; alforza; alfóstigo; alfoz; algaba; algaida; algalia1; 

algar1; algara1; algara2; algarabía1; algarabío, a; algarivo, va; algarrada1; algarroba; 

99

algavaro; algazafán; algazara; algazul; álgebra; algodón; algorfa; algoritmo; algorza; 

alguacil; alguaquida; alguaza; alhadida; alhaite; alhaja; alhamar; alhamel; alhamí; 

alhandal; alhanía; alhaquín1; alharaca; alharma; alhavara; alhelí; alheña; alhinde; alholva; 

alhorí; alhorre1; alhorre2; alhorría; alhucema; alhuceña; alhurreca; aliacán; aliara; 

alicante1; alicatar; alicate; alidada; alifa; alifafe1; alifafe2; alifara; alijar1; alimara; alioj; 

alizace; alizar; aljaba; aljabibe; aljama1; aljama2; aljamía; aljaraz; aljarfa; aljébana; 

aljerife; aljibe; aljofaina; aljófar; aljofifa; aljor; aljuba; aljuma; almacabra; almacén; 

almacería1; almáciga1; almáciga2; almadén; almádena; almadía; almadraba; almadraque; 

almadreña; almagacén; almagra; almahala; almaizar; almaja; almajaneque; almajar1; 

almajara; almalafa; almanaca; almanaque; almancebe; almarada; almarbate; almarcha; 

almarjo; almaro; almarrá; almarraja o almarraza; almártaga1; almártaga2; almástica; 

almatroque; almazara; almazarrón; almea1; almea2; almejía; almenara1; almenara2; 

almez; almíbar; almicantarat; almijar; almijara; almijarra; almimbar; alminar; almiraj, 

almiraje o almiral; almirez; almizate; almizque; almocadén; almocafre; almocárabe o 

almocarbe; almoceda; almocrebe; almocrí; almodón; almófar; almofariz; almofía; 

almofrej; almogama; almogávar; almohada; almohade; almoharrefa; almoháter o 

almohatre; almohaza; almojábana; almojama; almojarife; almojaya; almona; almoneda; 

almora; almoraduj o almoradux; almorávide; almorí; almotacén; almotalafe; almotazaf o 

almotazán; almozala o almozalla; almud; almudí o almudín; almuecín; almuédano; 

almunia; aloque; aloquín; alpargata; alpatana; alporchón; alquequenje; alquería; 

alquermes; alquerque1; alquerque2; alquez; alquezar; alquibla; alquicel o alquicer; 

alquiler; alquimia; alquinal; alquitara; alquitira; alquitrán; alrota; altabaca; altamía; 

altramuz; alubia; aludel; aluquete; alloza; amán; ámbar; ámel; amén1; amín; amir; 

amirate; amirí; anacalo, la; anacora; anafaga; anafalla o anafaya; anafe; anaquel; andorga; 

andorra; anea; anejir; anfión; anoria; anorza; anúbada; anúteba; añacal; añacea; añafea; 

añafil; añagaza; añascar; añazme; añicos; añil; arabí; arabía; arar1; arbellón; arbollón; 

archí; argamandel; argamula; argán; argel; argolla; arguello; árguenas; árgueñas; arije; 

arimez; arjorán; arnadí; arrabá; arrabal; arracada; arráez; arrayán; arrecife; arrejaque; 

arrelde; arrequife; arrequive; arriate; arriaz; arricés; arroba; arrobda; arrocabe; arrope; 

arroz; áscar; áscari; asequi; asesino, na; atabaca; atabal; atabe; atacir; atafarra; atafea; 

atahona; atahorma; ataifor; ataire; atalaya; atalvina; atambor; atanor; atanquía; ataquizar; 

ataracea; atarazana; atarfe; atarjea; atarraga2; atarraya; ataúd; ataujía; ataurique; atifle; 

atijara; atíncar; atoba; atoque; atracar2; atríaca o atriaca; atún; atutía; auge; aulaga; 

avería2; ayatolá; azabache; azabara; azacán, na; azacaya; azache; azafate; azafrán; azahar; 

azalá; azamboa; azándar; azanoria; azaque; azaquefa; azar; azarbe; azarcón; azarja; 

azarnefe; azarote; azófar; azofra; azogue1; azogue2; azolvar; azor2; azorafa; azote; 

azotea; azúcar; azucarí; azucena; azud; azufaifa; azul; azulaque; azulejo2; azúmbar; 

azumbre. 

babismo; babucha; badal2; badán; badana; badea; badén; bagarino; bahaísmo; baharí; 

baída; bajá; baladí; balaj; balate1; balda2; baldar; balde2; baño2; baraca; barbacana; 

barcino, na; barda1; bardaje; barragán2; barrio; bata1; batán; batea; baurac; bayal1; baza; 

beduino, na; belez; bellota; ben1; benimerín; benjuí; berberí; berberís; beréber o bereber; 

berenjena; bezaar; bocací; bodoque; bófeta; bórax; borní; boronía; botor; bulbul; burche; 

buzaque. 

Cabila; cachera; cadí; cadira2; café; cáfila; cafiz; cafre; caftán; caimacán; cala2; 

calafate; calahorra; cali; cálibo; califa; calilo, la; cambuj; camocán; canana; cáncana2; 

cáncano; cande1; canfor; caraba; cárabe; cárabo2; cárabo3; caracoa; caramida; 

caramuzal; caravana; carcajada; carcax2; carme; carmesí; carraca1; carrafa; cártamo; 

casida; catán; catifa; cazurro, rra; cazuz; cebtí; ceca1; cedoaria; cegatero, ra; cegrí; ceje; 

celemí; cenacho; cendolilla; cenefa; cení; cenia; cequí; cequia; cerbatana; cero; cetís; 

ceutí; cianí; cibica; cica1; cicalar; cicatear; cicatero, ra; ciclán; ciclar; ciclatón; cifaque; 

cifra; címbara; cimboga; cimitarra; circón; citara; civeto; coba3; cofa; cohol; coima1; 

coima2; coime; colcótar; cora1; corbacho; corma; cotonía; cozcucho; cubeba; cúfico, ca; 

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cunacho; cúrcuma; curdo, da; cuscuta; cuzcuz; chafarote; chaleco; charrán1; cherva; 

chifla2; chiísmo; chilaba; chirivía; chisme2; chivo1; chupa1. 

Dado1; daga2; dahír; daifa; dante; darga; dársena; daza; derviche; descafilar; 

destartalado, da; dey; dinar; dirhem; diván; dolame; dula. 

Edrisí; ejarbe; elche; elemí; elixir o elíxir; embarazar; embelecar; engarzar; enjarje; 

enjeco2; escabeche; escafilar; escaque; escarlata; escazarí; espinaca; exarico. 

Fadrubado, da; falagar; falca; falúa; faluca; falleba; fanega; faquir; faranga; farda1; 

farda3; fardacho; farnaca; farota; fatimí; felús; feseta; fetua; fez2; fideo; filelí; foceifiza; 

fodolí; fondac; foz1; fulano, na; fustal; fustete. 

Gabán; gabela; gacel; gacela; gafetí; galacho; galanga; galbana1; galbana2; gálibo; 

galima; gandul2, la; garama; garbino; gardacho; gárgol1; garrama; garroba; gilí; gomer; 

granadí; grisgrís; guadamecí; guájara; guájete por guájete; ¡gualá!; guarismo, guata1; 

guifa; guilla; guitarra; gumía; gurapas. 

Habiz; habús; hacino, na; hachís; hadruba; hafiz; ¡hala!; hálara; hamudí; harambel; 

harbar; harca; harén; harma; harón, na; hasaní; hasta; hazaña; he1; hégira; hobacho, cha; 

¡hola!; hoque; horro, hurí. 

Imam; imela; islam. 

Jabalí; jabalón; jabeca; jábeca; jabeque1; jabeque2; jabí1; jácara; jácena; jadraque; jaez; 

jaguarzo; jaharí; jaharral; jaharrar; jaique; jaloque; jametería; jámila; japuta; jaque1; 

jaque3; jaqueca; jáquima; jara; jarabe; jaraíz; jareta; jaricar; jarifo, fa; jarquía; jarra; 

jatib; jazarino, na; jazmín; jebe; jedive; jeliz; jemesía; jeque1; jerbo; jergón2; jerife; 

jeta1; jifa; jineta1; jinete; jirafa; jirel; jofaina; jofor; jorfe; joroba; jorro; josa; jota4; 

juba; judía; julepe; jurdía. 

Kermes. 

Laca; lairén; lapislázuli; latón1; laúd; lebeche; lebení; leila; lelilí; lima1; limón1. 

Macabro, bra; macsura; madraza2; magacén; maglaca; maharón, na; maharrana; maimón; 

majzén; mameluco; mamola; mandeísmo; mandil; maquila; marabú; maravedí; marcasita; 

marchamo; márfega; marfil; marfuz, za; margomar; marjal1; marjal2; marlota; marojo2; 

maroma; marrano1, na; marras; marroquí; masamuda; máscara; matafalúa; mate2; 

matraca; matula; mauraca; mazarí; mazmodina; mazmorra; mazorral; meca; mehala; 

mengano, na; mercal; metical; mezquino, na; mezquita; mía; mihrab; miramamolín; 

místico1; mogataz; mogate; moharra; moharracho; mohatra; mojí1; momia; mona2; 

monfí; mono, na; morabito; moraga; motacén; mozárabe; mudéjar; muftí; mujalata; 

muladí; mulquía; muslim o muslime. 

Nabí; nácar; nácara1; nadir; nádir; nafa; nagüela; naife; naranja; narguile; natrón; nazarí; 

nenúfar; nesga; noca; noque; noria; nuca. 

¡Ojalá!; ojaranzo; ¡olé!; olíbano; omeya; oque (de); orozuz; orzaga; otomano, na; ¡ox!. 

Paraíso. 

Quermes; quilate; quilma; quina3; quintal; quiosco; quirate. 

Rabadán; rabal; rabazuz; rabel1; rábida; rafal; rafe1; ragua; rahez; ramadán; rambla; 

ranzal; rasmia; rauda2; rauta; razzia ; real3; rebato; rebite; recamar; recua; redoma; 

regaifa; rehala; rehalí; rehén; rejalgar; requive; res; resma; retama; rincón; robda1; 

robda2; robo2; romí; ronda; ronzal1; roque1; rubia3; ruc. 

Saboga; saetía; saharaui; sajelar; salema; salep; sampaguita; sandía; sarilla; sarraceno, na; 

sebestén; secácul; sena1; sera; serafín2; siroco; sofí; sófora; solimán; soltaní; sorbete; 

sufí; sultán; sura1. 

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Tabal; tabaque1; tabefe; tabica; tabique; taca2; tafurea; tagarino, na; tagarnino; tagarote; 

taha; tahalí; taheño, ña; tahona; taifa; tajea; talco; talega; talvina; támara1; tamarindo; 

tambor; tara1; taracea; taraje; tarasí; tarbea; tarea; tareco; tarida; tarifa; tarima; tarquín; 

tarraya; taza; tertil; tíbar; tochibí; tomín; toronja; toronjil; trafalmejas; truchimán, na; 

trujamán, na; tuera; tumbaga; tunecí; turbit; turco, ca; turquí; tutía. 

Ulema. 

Vacarí; valí; valija; velmez; visir. 

Yemení. 

Zabacequia; zabazala; zabazoque; zabila; zabra; zacatín; zafa; zafariche; zafío; zafio, fia; 

zafra1; zafra3; zafra4; zafrán; zaga; zagal1; zagaya; zagua; zaguán; zagüía; zahén; 

zahora; zahorí; zaida; zaino1, 2; zalá; zalama; zalamelé; zalea; zalema; zalmedina; 

zalona; zamacuco, ca; zamboa; zambra1; zambra2; zanahoria; zaque; zaquizamí; 

zaragüelles; zaratán1; zaratán2; zarco, zargatona; zarracatín; zarzahán; zatara; zéjel; 

zoco2; zofra; zoquete; zorzal; zubia; zulaque; zulla1; zumaque; zuna1; zurrapa; zurriaga. 

Recebido para publicação em 23-12-11; aceito em 15-01-12 

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Palavras de Origem Árabe Dicionarizadas em Inglês e em Espanhol

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