__NOTOC__ The following English words have been acquired either directly from Arabic or else indirectly by passing from Arabic into other languages and then into English. Most entered one or more of the Romance languages before entering English.
To qualify for this list, a word must be reported in etymology dictionaries as having descended from Arabic. A handful of dictionaries has been used as the source for the list.The dictionaries used to compile the list are these: Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales: Etymologies, Online Etymology Dictionary, Random House Dictionary, Concise Oxford English Dictionary, American Heritage Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Arabismen im Deutschen: lexikalische Transferenzen vom Arabischen ins Deutsche, by Raja Tazi (year 1998), A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (a.k.a. "NED") (published in pieces between 1888 and 1928), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English (year 1921) by Ernest Weekley. Footnotes for individual words have supplementary other references. The most frequently cited of the supplementary references is Glossaire des mots espagnols et portugais dérivés de l'arabe (year 1869) by Reinhart Dozy. Words associated with the Islamic religion are omitted; for Islamic words, see Glossary of Islam. Archaic and rare words are also omitted. A bigger listing including many words very rarely seen in English is available at Wiktionary dictionary.
Loanwords listed in alphabetical order List of English words of Arabic origin (A-B) List of English words of Arabic origin (C-F) List of English words of Arabic origin (G-J) List of English words of Arabic origin (K-M) List of English words of Arabic origin (N-S) List of English words of Arabic origin (T-Z) List of English words of Arabic origin: Addenda for certain specialist vocabularies
N nadir نَظِير naẓīr (), a point on a celestial sphere diametrically opposite some other point; or a direction to outer space diametrically opposite some other direction. That sense for the word was used by, e.g., the astronomer Al-Battani (died 929). Naẓīr in medieval Arabic more broadly meant "counterpart". "The Arabic 'z' here used is the 17th letter of the Arabic alphabet, an unusual letter with a difficult sound, which came to be rendered by 'd' in Low Latin."Reported in An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, by Walter W. Skeat, year 1888. Downloadable. The word's earliest records in the West are in 12th- and 13th-century Latin astronomy texts as and nadir, with the same meaning as the Arabic, and the earliest is in an Arabic-to-Latin translation.In the mid-12th century, Plato Tiburtinus did an Arabic-to-Latin translation of an astronomy book by Al-Battani (died 929). In the translation, Al-Battani's Arabic naẓīr and naẓīra was written down in Latin as . This was remarked on in a history of astronomy by Jean Delambre in 1819 – ref. The 10th century text by Al-Battani is in Arabic at AlChamel14.org (also at Archive.org and Al-Hakawati.net), and its 12th century translation by Plato Tiburtinus is at Books.Google.com. The earliest reported secure record for the wordform nadir in the West is dated circa 1233 in the short and influential astronomy textbook De Sphaera Mundi by Johannes de Sacrobosco. Sacrobosco's book was influenced by Arabic astronomy; e.g. it quotes by name the Arabic astronomer Al-Farghani (aka Alfraganus) five times. In the context of talking about how planet Earth blocks sunlight from reaching the Moon during a lunar eclipse, Sacrobosco says in Latin: "The nadir is a point in outer space directly opposite to the sun." That statement by Sacrobosco uses nadir in the sense the Arabic naẓīr was used, which in Arabic had a core meaning of "counterpart". Sacrobosco's De Sphaera is online in Latin and in English translation. Nadir in this original sense was used by Roger Bacon (died 1294) (ref) and Nicholas Oresme (died 1382) (ref), among others. Crossref zenith, which was transferred from Arabic astronomy to Latin astronomy on the same pathway at the same time.
natron, natrium, kalium The ancient Greeks had the word nitron with the meaning of naturally occurring sodium carbonate and similar salts. The medieval Arabs had this spelled نطرون natrūn () with the same meaning. Today's European word natron, meaning hydrated sodium carbonate, is descended from the Arabic.English dictionaries saying "natron" is from Arabic include Merriam-Webster, American Heritage Dictionary, Random House Dictionary, Etymonline, Concise OED, NED, and Weekley. According to all those English dictionaries, the transfer from Arabic to the Western languages was through Spanish, at an unspecified date. But all the main Spanish dictionaries say Spanish natron is from French. That includes the official dictionary of the Spanish language, Diccionario RAE. The Spanish natron, and also the variant anatron, "are modern technical terms borrowed from French", says the Spanish and Arabic expert Federico Corriente (year 2008). The earliest known modern record of natron in Spanish is year 1817, says the Spanish etymology dictionary Diccionario crítico etimológico de la lengua castellana (year 1957). The earliest French is 1653 – CNRTL.fr. The earliest English is 1684 – NED. "Natron" and the closely associated "anatron" were established together in English dictionaries from 1706. Nathan Bailey's English Dictionary in 1737 defined natron as "a kind of black, greyish salt taken out of a lake of stagnant water in the territory of Terrana in Egypt" – ref; and defined "anatron" as any of several salts including one taken from Egypt – ref. The substance natron was brought to Europe from Egypt in the medieval centuries as well as in the early modern centuries. The usual word for it in medieval Latin was nitrum (etymologically from ancient Greek without Arabic intermediation). It was called nitrum in late medieval English as well – MED. One late medieval Latin dictionary defined nitrum as "a kind of salt brought from Alexandria", Egypt – ref: Alphita. In the medieval Latin literature more generally nitrum could also be a name for other alkaline salts – ref. In Arabic, a 9th-century Arabic minerals book said natrūn is a type of salt used as a washing agent – ref. That is natron. Many more examples from medieval Arabic are at AlWaraq.net under النطرون al-natrūn and نطرون natrūn. The wordform "natron" occurs in Latin in Italy in a book by Simon of Genoa in the late 13th century, in which "natron" was stated to be simply "the Arabic word for nitrum" – ref: Raja Tazi, year 1998. The wordform "anatron" (formed from al-natrūn) occurs in Latin around year 1300 in a book by the influential Latin alchemist Pseudo-Geber – ref: Pseudo-Geber as published 1542. Both of those two medieval Latin writers had some knowledge of Arabic language. Natron and anatron were rare in medieval Latin. However, in the 16th century, anatron | anathron was adopted in Latin in Germany in the widely disseminated writings of Paracelsus (died 1541) – Paracelsus was influenced by Pseudo-Geber – and then by Paracelsus's followers Oswald Croll (died 1609) and Martin Ruland (died 1602) – ref: Raja Tazi, year 1998. Martin Ruland also used the spelling natron and said natron was synonymous with nitrum – ref: Martin Ruland, year 1612. Despite those precedents in Latin, today's official dictionary of the French language judges that the French natron arrived in French directly from Arabic natrūn, from Egypt, in the mid-17th century, meaning sodium carbonate – CNRTL.fr. In early 17th century Europe the name nitrum had undesirable ambiguity, as can be seen in the several incompatible meanings for nitrum given in Martin Ruland's 1612 Lexicon Alchemiae. The primary meaning for nitrum was becoming potassium nitrate, aka nitre (the parent of "nitrogen"). Undoubtedly this encouraged adoption of name natron to reduce the potential for misunderstanding. In Europe shortly after sodium was isolated as an element for the first time, in the early 19th century, sodium was given the scientific abbreviation Na from a newly created Latin name, initially then natrium, which goes back etymologically to the medieval and early modern Arabic natrūn."Natrium" at Elementymology & Elements Multidict. Also in the early 19th century, elemental potassium was isolated for the first time and was soon afterwards given the scientific abbreviation K representing a created Latin name Kalium, which was derived from 18th-century scientific Latin Kali meaning potassium carbonate, which goes back etymologically to medieval Arabic al-qalī, which for the medieval Arabs was a mixture of potassium carbonate and sodium carbonate."Kalium" at Elementymology & Elements Multidict. Crossref alkali on the list.
O orange نارنج nāranj (), orange (a citrus fruit), via Persian and Sanskrit nāraṅga from a Dravidian language. The orange tree came from India. It was introduced to the Mediterranean region by the Arabs in the early 10th century, at which time all oranges were bitter oranges.Origin of Cultivated Plants by Alphonse de Candolle (year 1885), pages 183–188 for orange. Further details in "Études sur les noms arabes des végétaux: l'oranger et ses congénères", by J.J. Clément-Mullet in Journal Asiatique sixième série Tome XV, pages 17 to 41, year 1870. The geographer Al-Masudi writing in the 940s (AD) said that the orange tree (shajar al-nāranj) had been introduced to Arabic-speaking lands only a few decades previously (ref). The word is in all the Mediterranean Latin languages from the later medieval centuries. Today it is naranja in Spanish, but arancia in Italian, and orange in French, and this wordform with the loss of the leading 'n' occurs early as Latin arangia (late 12th centuryGeorge Gallesio's history of the culture of citrus fruits (year 1811) (online) cites arangias acetoso used in Latin in a letter entitled Ad Petrum Panormitanae Ecclesiae Thesaurarium dated 1189 and attributed to a Latin author of the later 12th century named Hugo Falcandus. The same is cited in Du Cange's Glossary of Medieval Latin.).
P popinjay (parrot) ببغاء babaghāʾ | babbaghāʾ (), parrot. The change from medieval Arabic sound /b/ to medieval Latin and French sound /p/ also occurs in the loanwords Julep, Jumper, Spinach, and Syrup. The French papegai = "parrot" has a late-12th-century start dateMore details at CNRTL.fr Etymologie in French language. Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales (CNRTL) is a division of the French National Centre for Scientific Research. and the English dates from a century later. The wordform was affected by the pre-existing (from classical Latin) French gai = Spanish gayo = English "jay (bird)". Parrots were imported to medieval Europe via Arabic speakers.Parrots come from tropical or at least semi-tropical environs. Parrots were imported to Mediterranean Europe in antiquity. The ancient Greek and classical Latin name for a parrot was psittacus. In the medieval era, the imports of parrots to Europe often and probably usually came through Arabic speakers. Medieval Arabic from an early date has al-bab(a)ghāʾ | al-babbaghāʾ = "parrot" as a well-known and commonplace word – الببغا + الببغاء @ AlWaraq.net. It is taken to be the parent word of the medieval Greek papagás = "parrot" (the 's' in papagás is a grammatical affix: masculine singular nominative-case nouns end in 's' in Greek grammar), and the medieval French papegai, medieval Spanish papagayo, and similar forms in other medieval European languages – popinjay @ NED. In Arabic it is not known how the word babaghā originated. The same word babaghā is in Persian. An origin in a tropical locale has been suggested.
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