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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
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
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. Words associated with the Islamic religion are omitted; for Islamic words, see
Glossary of Islam
The following list consists of notable concepts that are derived from Islamic and associated cultural (Arab, Persian, Turkish) traditions, which are expressed as words in Arabic or Persian language. The main purpose of this list is to disambi ...
. 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)
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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.
...
*
List of English words of Arabic origin (C-F)
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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.
...
*List of English words of Arabic origin (G-J)
*
List of English words of Arabic origin (K-M)
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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.
...
*
List of English words of Arabic origin (N-S)
__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.
...
*
List of English words of Arabic origin (T-Z)
__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.
...
*
List of English words of Arabic origin: Addenda for certain specialist vocabularies
G
;
garble : غربل ''gharbal'', to sift. Common in Arabic before year 1000.
[A number of large dictionaries were written in Arabic during medieval times. Searchable copies of nearly all of the main medieval Arabic dictionaries are online a]
Baheth.info
and/o
AlWaraq.net
One of the most esteemed of the dictionaries is Ismail ibn Hammad al-Jawhari Abu Nasr Isma'il ibn Hammad al-Jawhari () also spelled al-Jauhari (died 1002 or 1008) was a medieval Turkic lexicographer and the author of a notable Arabic dictionary ''al-Ṣiḥāḥ fī al-lughah'' ().
Life
He was born in the city of Farab ( O ...
's ''"Al-Sihah"'' which is dated around and shortly after year 1000. The biggest is Ibn Manzur
Muhammad ibn Mukarram ibn Alī ibn Ahmad ibn Manzūr al-Ansārī al-Ifrīqī al-Misrī al-Khazrajī () also known as Ibn Manẓūr () (June–July 1233 – December 1311/January 1312) was an Arab lexicographer of the Arabic language and author o ...
's ''"Lisan Al-Arab"'' which is dated 1290 but most of its contents were taken from a variety of earlier sources, including 9th- and 10th-century sources. Often Ibn Manzur names his source then quotes from it. Therefore, if the reader recognizes the name of Ibn Manzur's source, a date considerably earlier than 1290 can often be assigned to what is said. A list giving the year of death of a number of individuals who Ibn Manzur quotes from is i
Lane's ''Arabic-English Lexicon'', volume 1, page xxx
(year 1863). Lane's '' Arabic-English Lexicon'' contains much of the main contents of the medieval Arabic dictionaries in English translation. At AlWaraq.net, in addition to searchable copies of medieval Arabic dictionaries, there are searchable copies of a large number of medieval Arabic texts on various subjects. Early records in European languages are at seaports in Italy and Catalonia. They include Latin ''garbellare'' = "to sift" in year 1191 sifting drugs and resins, Latin = "a sieve for sifting spices" in 1227, Latin ''garbellare'' sifting dyestuffs in 1269, Italian ''gherbellare'' = "to sift spices and drugs" in 1321. They begot English ''garbele'' = "to sift spices" starting 1393. In later-medieval Europe,
pepper
Pepper or peppers may refer to:
Food and spice
* Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant
** Black pepper
* ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae
** Bell pepper
** Chili ...
and
ginger and other
spice trade items were always imports from the Arabic-speaking Eastern Mediterranean, and the same goes for many botanical drugs (herbal medicines) and a few expensive colorants. The spices, drugs and colorants contained variable amounts of natural chaff residuals and occasionally contained unnatural added chaff. In England among the merchants of these products in late medieval and early post-medieval centuries, garble was a frequent word.
[In England around year 1400, either in English or in Anglo-Norman French, all of the following words referred to sifting removal of stalks and impurities from spices: garbel, garbelage, garbelen, garbelinge, garbalour, garbelure, garbellable, ungarbled ]
''Middle English Dictionary''
For example in an Act of Parliament in 1439 applying to English ports where spices were offered for sale, any spices not "trewly and duely garbelyd and clensyd" were subject to "forfaiture of the said Spiceries so yfound ungarbelyd and unclensyd". Garbled meant that the parts of the spice plant that were not part of the spice were removed. Garble was also used as a noun for the refuse removed by garbling; e.g. in an Act of Parliament in 1603-04: "If any of the said Spices... shall be mixed with any Garbles..."
ref: NED
The verb Garble has records in England starting from 1393 documented in the ''Middle English Dictionary'' a
ref
an
ref
A Garbler or Garbelour, also 1393, was an official in the City of London who could enter a shop or warehouse to view spices and drugs, and garble them, to check them for compliance with rules against having cheaper stuff mixed in with them. Meanwhile, the early meaning of the English "garbage" (first known record 1422, in London) was the low-grade yet consumable parts of poultry
Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, their meat or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails, ...
such as the birds' heads, necks and gizzards
ref: MED
Over the next two centuries "garbage" gradually came to mean the refuse parts of butchered animals
ref: Lexicons of Early Modern English
In the early 18th century '' Nathan Bailey's English Dictionary'' defined garbage as "the entrails, etc., of cattle", and defined garble as "to cleanse from dross and dirt", and defined garbles as "the dust, soil or filth separated by garbling"
ref
Nathan Bailey says the parent of garbage is garble (together with the suffi
-age
. Most dictionaries today disagree with Bailey. They say instead the parent of garbage is unknown. The influential ''New English Dictionary on Historical Principles'' (year 1901) says the word garbage is "of obscure origin". To that dictionary's knowledge, however, the earliest record for garbage is 1430 and the earliest for garble is 148
(ref: NED)
which, if it were true, would imply that "garbage" existed in English prior to the arrival of garble. The fact that garble has records from 1393 makes it easier to believe that garbage probably or possibly came from garble. Sifting and culling was word's usual meaning in English until the 19th century and today's meaning grew out from it.
;
gauze : قزّ ,
silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the ...
of any kind – this is uncertain as the source for the Western word, but etymology dictionaries are almost unanimous the source is probably from medieval Arabic somehow. The English is from late medieval French ''gaze'', pronounced gazz , ga:z in French, meaning "high-quality lightweight fabric having an aspect of transparency" (very often silk but not necessarily silk). ''Al-qazz'' = "silk" was frequent in medieval Arabic, and it could be relatively easily transferred into the Latin languages because much of the silk of the medieval Latins was imported from Arabic lands.
Other propositions involving other Arabic source-words for the French ''gaze'' have also been aired.
[In medieval Arabic ''al-qazz'' meant "silk" including "silk garment", "silk fabric", "silk yarn", and "raw silk", and it is a common word in medieval Arabic – se]
دمقس AND القزّ @ Baheth.info
an
القزّ @ AlWaraq.net
Latin ''Gazzatum'' = "luxurious clothing" is in Latin in 1279
Du Cange
In medieval Latin that is a rare word and it looks foreign although the ''-atum'' part of it is a common Latin suffix. The Latin suffix '' -atum'' means "having properties characteristic of". So ''gazzatum'' clothing is clothing having properties of ''gazz'' (whatever ''gazz'' is). French ''gaze'' is pronounced like English gazz. French ''gaze'' has its first record in 1461 as man's robe made of ''gaze''
CNRTL.fr
In French in 1483 it is some kind of garment fabric and is spelled ''gaz''
DMF
In French in the later 16th century ''gaze'' was "high-quality light-weight fabric having transparency" (example
where Cotgrave's English "tiffany" meant transparent silk). The French ''gaze'' is the parent of English ''gauze'' (1561), Spanish ''gasa'' (1611), German ''Gass'' (1649), German ''Gaze'' (1679), Italian ''garza'' (1704), Catalan ''gasa'' (1736)
Raja Tazi, year 1998 page 201
Excepting small quantities, silk was not produced in Latin Europe until the 14th century. Instead almost all the silk fabric of the medieval Latins was imported from Byzantine and Arabic lands, pre-14th century; and importing continued in the 14th and 15th centuries
"Silk in the Medieval World"
by Anna Muthesius in ''The Cambridge History of Western Textiles'' (year 2003). Hence multiple mercantile routes existed by which an Arabic word for silk could have entered Western languages. A change from 'q' to 'g' in going from Arabic ''qazz'' to a Western ''gazz'' has parallels in other Arabic loanwords in the West, which are noted b
Dozy year 1869 page 15
Devic year 1876 page 123
an
Lammens year 1890 page xxvii - xxviii
In medieval Arabic there was also الخزّ ''al-khazz'' = "silk fabric; half-silk fabric; fine fabric" and it was a commonly used word – الخزّ @ Baheth.info
الخزّ @ AlWaraq.net
Lane's ''Lexicon'' page 731
– and an Arabic 'kh' converted to a medieval Latin 'g' has parallels in Algorithm, Magazine, an
Galingale
As a separate idea, some of today's dictionaries report that the late medieval French name ''gaze'' originated from the name of the Middle Eastern coastal town Gaza. This is an old idea which can be found i
Gilles Ménage's ''Dictionnaire Étymologique'' year 1694
But the idea comes without supporting evidence, and comes lacking a fabric definition for the supposed exported fabric, and moreover the historical records are such that "the existence of a textile industry in medieval Gaza is not assured" – CNRTL.fr. In the West the word has had varying sense over time, something it has in common with a number of other fabric names. A common explanation is that the word is derived from the city Gaza.
;
gazelle
A gazelle is one of many antelope species in the genus ''Gazella'' . This article also deals with the seven species included in two further genera, '' Eudorcas'' and '' Nanger'', which were formerly considered subgenera of ''Gazella''. A third ...
: غزال ''ghazāl'', gazelle. Two species of gazelle are native in the Middle East. The word's earliest known record in the West is in early 12th-century Latin as ''gazela'' in a book about the
First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic r ...
by
Albert of Aix Albert of Aix(-la-Chapelle) or Albert of Aachen; la, Albericus Aquensis; ''fl.'' c. 1100) was a historian of the First Crusade and the early Kingdom of Jerusalem. He was born during the later part of the 11th century, and afterwards became canon ( ...
.
[More details a]
''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
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...
. Another early record is in late 12th-century French as ''gacele'' in a book about the
Third Crusade
The Third Crusade (1189–1192) was an attempt by three European monarchs of Western Christianity (Philip II of France, Richard I of England and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor) to reconquer the Holy Land following the capture of Jerusalem by ...
by
Ambroise of Normandy. Another is in late 13th-century French as ''gazel'' in a book about the
Seventh Crusade by
Jean de Joinville
Jean de Joinville (, c. 1 May 1224 – 24 December 1317) was one of the great chroniclers of medieval France. He is most famous for writing the ''Life of Saint Louis'', a biography of Louis IX of France that chronicled the Seventh Crusade.''V ...
.
;
gerbil
The Mongolian gerbil or Mongolian jird (''Meriones unguiculatus'') is a small rodent belonging to the subfamily Gerbillinae. Their body size is typically , with a tail, and body weight , with adult males larger than females. The animal is us ...
,
jerboa
Jerboas (from ar, جربوع ') are hopping desert rodents found throughout North Africa and Asia, and are members of the family Dipodidae. They tend to live in hot deserts.
When chased, jerboas can run at up to . Some species are preyed on b ...
,
gundi
Gundis or comb rats (family Ctenodactylidae) are a group of small, stocky rodents found in Africa. They live in rocky deserts across the northern parts of the continent. The family comprises four living genera and five species ( Speke's gundi, ...
,
jird
''Meriones'' is a rodent genus that includes the gerbil most commonly kept as a pet, ''Meriones unguiculatus''. The genus contains most animals referred to as jirds, but members of the genera '' Sekeetamys'', ''Brachiones'', and sometimes '' Pach ...
: These are four classes of rodents native to desert or semi-desert environments in North Africa and Asia, and not found natively in Europe. Jerboa is a 17th-century European borrowing of Arabic يربوع ''yarbūʿa'' = "jerboa". Early-19th-century European naturalists created "gerbil" as a
Latinate diminutive of the word jerboa. قندي ''qundī'' = gundi, 18th-century European borrowing جرد ''jird'' = jird, 18th-century European borrowing
;
ghoul
A ghoul ( ar, غول, ') is a demon-like being or monstrous humanoid. The concept originated in pre-Islamic Arabian religion, associated with graveyards and the consumption of human flesh. Modern fiction often uses the term to label a cert ...
: غول ''ghūl'', ghoul. Ghouls are a well-known part of Arabic folklore. The word's first appearance in the West was in an Arabic-to-French translation of the ''
1001 Arabian Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...
'' tales in 1712.
Its first appearance in English was in a popular novel, ''
Vathek, an Arabian Tale'' by William Beckford, in 1786. Ghouls appear in English translations of the ''1001 Arabian Nights'' tales in the 19th century.
;
giraffe : زرافة ''zarāfa'', giraffe. The giraffe and its distinctiveness was discussed by medieval Arabic writers including
Al-Jahiz
Abū ʿUthman ʿAmr ibn Baḥr al-Kinānī al-Baṣrī ( ar, أبو عثمان عمرو بن بحر الكناني البصري), commonly known as al-Jāḥiẓ ( ar, links=no, الجاحظ, ''The Bug Eyed'', born 776 – died December 868/Jan ...
(died 868) and
Al-Masudi
Al-Mas'udi ( ar, أَبُو ٱلْحَسَن عَلِيّ ٱبْن ٱلْحُسَيْن ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱلْمَسْعُودِيّ, '; –956) was an Arab historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodotus ...
(died 956). The earliest records of the transfer of the Arabic word to the West are in Italian in the second half of the 13th century,
a time at which a few giraffes were brought to the Kingdom of Sicily and Naples from a zoo in
Cairo, Egypt.
H
;
haboob (type of sandstorm) : هبوب ''habūb'', gale wind. The English means a dense, short-lived, desert sandstorm created by an air
downburst
In meteorology, a downburst is a strong downward and outward gushing wind system that emanates from a point source above and blows radially, that is, in straight lines in all directions from the area of impact at surface level. Capable of pro ...
. Year 1897 first known use in English.
;
harem
Harem ( Persian: حرمسرا ''haramsarā'', ar, حَرِيمٌ ''ḥarīm'', "a sacred inviolable place; harem; female members of the family") refers to domestic spaces that are reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. A har ...
:حريم ''harīm'', women's quarters in a large household. The Arabic root-word means "forbidden" and thus the word had a connotation of a place where men were forbidden. (Crossref Persian and Urdu
Zenana
Zenana ( fa, زنانه, ur, , bn, জেনানা, hi, ज़नाना) literally meaning "of the women" or "pertaining to women", in Persian language contextually refers to the part of a house belonging to a Muslim, Sikh, or Hindu f ...
for semantics.) 17th-century English entered English through Turkish, where the meaning was closer to what the English is. In Arabic today ''harīm'' means womenkind in general.
;
hashish : حشيش ''hashīsh'', hashish. ''Hashīsh'' in Arabic has the literal meaning "dried herb" and "rough grass". It also means hemp grown for textile fiber. Its earliest record as a nickname for
cannabis
''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: '' Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternative ...
drug is in 12th- or 13th-century Arabic. In English in a traveller's report from Egypt in 1598 it is found in the form "''assis''". The word is rare in English until the 19th century. The wordform in English today dates from the early 19th century.
;
henna,
alkanet,
alkannin
Alkannin is a natural dye that is obtained from the extracts of plants from the borage family ''Alkanna tinctoria'' that are found in the south of France. The dye is used as a food colouring and in cosmetics. It is used as a red-brown food additive ...
,
Alkanna : حنّاء ''hinnā'', henna. Henna is a reddish natural dye made from the leaves of ''
Lawsonia inermis
''Lawsonia inermis'', also known as hina, the henna tree, the mignonette tree, and the Egyptian privet, is a flowering plant and one of the only two species of the genus ''Lawsonia'', with the other being '' Lawsonia odorata''. The species is n ...
''. The English dates from about 1600 and came directly from Arabic through English-language travellers reports from the Middle East. Alkanet dye is a reddish natural dye made from the roots of ''
Alkanna tinctoria
''Alkanna tinctoria'', the dyer's alkanet or simply alkanet, is a herbaceous flowering plant in the borage family Boraginaceae. Its roots are used to produce a red dye. The plant is also known as dyers' bugloss, orchanet, Spanish bugloss, or La ...
'' and this word is 14th-century English, with a Romance-language diminutive suffix '-et', from medieval Latin ''alcanna'' meaning both "henna" and "alkanet", from Arabic ''al-hinnā'' meaning henna.
;
hookah (water pipe for smoking): حقّة ''huqqa'', pot or jar or round container. The word arrived in English from
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
in the 2nd half of the 18th century meaning hookah. The Indian word was from Persian, and the Persian was from Arabic, but the Arabic source-word did not mean hookah, although the word re-entered Arabic later on meaning hookah.
;
hummus (food recipe): حمّص ''himmas'', chickpea(s). Chickpeas in medieval Arabic were called ''himmas''
and were a frequently eaten food item.
[Boo]
''Medieval Arab Cookery: Essays and Translations''
by M. Rodinson, A.J. Arberry and C. Perry, year 2001. In the 19th century in Syria and Lebanon the word was commonly pronounced ''hommos''. This was borrowed into Turkish as ''humus'', and entered English from Turkish in the mid-20th century. The Turkish and English hummus means mashed chickpeas mixed with tahini and certain flavourings. In Arabic that is called ''himmas bil tahina''. See also the list's Addendum for Middle Eastern cuisine words.
J
;
jar (food or drink container) : جرّة ''jarra'', an earthenware jar, an upright container made of pottery. First records in English are in 1418 and 1421 as a container for
olive oil.
["Jar" in the ''Middle English Dictionary'']
a quote dated 1421
The same dictionary has another quote fo
"Jar" dated 1418
The jars hold olive oil in both of those cases. Jar was rare in English until the 17th century, and the 17th century English jar still had the primary meaning of a large earthenware jar holding imported olive oil (or less often other vegetable oil) used as fuel for oil-lamps. This can be seen from a search for ''jar , jarr , jarre , iar , iarre'' a
''Lexicons of Early Modern English'' (LEME)
More on the early meaning of "Jar" in English is i
''New English Dictionary on Historical Principles''
Documents for Catalan ''jarra'' start in 1233, Spanish ''jarra'' in 1251, Italian in 1280s. Arabic ''jarra'' is commonplace centuries earlier.
For the medieval Arabic and Spanish word, and also for the word's early centuries of use in English, the typical jar was considerably bigger than the typical jar in English today.
;
jasmine,
jessamine,
jasmone: ياسمين , jasmine. In medieval Arabic jasmine was well known.
The word has an early record in the West in southern Italy in an Arabic-to-Latin book translation about year 1240 that mentions flower-oil extracted from jasmine flowers.
In the West, the word was uncommon until the 16th century and the same goes for the plant itself (''
Jasminum officinale'' and its relatives).
;
jerboa
Jerboas (from ar, جربوع ') are hopping desert rodents found throughout North Africa and Asia, and are members of the family Dipodidae. They tend to live in hot deserts.
When chased, jerboas can run at up to . Some species are preyed on b ...
,
jird
''Meriones'' is a rodent genus that includes the gerbil most commonly kept as a pet, ''Meriones unguiculatus''. The genus contains most animals referred to as jirds, but members of the genera '' Sekeetamys'', ''Brachiones'', and sometimes '' Pach ...
: ''see gerbil''
;
jinn (mythology) : الجنّ ''al-jinn'', the jinn. The roles of jinns and ghouls in Arabic folklore are discussed by e.g.
Al-Masudi
Al-Mas'udi ( ar, أَبُو ٱلْحَسَن عَلِيّ ٱبْن ٱلْحُسَيْن ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱلْمَسْعُودِيّ, '; –956) was an Arab historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodotus ...
(died 956). (The semantically related English
genie
Jinn ( ar, , ') – also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirit or demon, depending on sources)
– are invisible creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian religious systems and later in Islamic myt ...
is not derived from jinn, though it has been influenced by it through the ''
1001 Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...
'' tales).
;
julep (type of drink) : جلاب ''julāb'',
rose water
Rose water ( fa, گلاب) is a flavoured water made by steeping rose petals in water. It is the hydrosol portion of the distillate of rose petals, a by-product of the production of rose oil for use in perfume. Rose water is also used to fla ...
and a syrupy drink.
Arabic was from Persian ''gulab'' = "rose water". In its early use in English it was a syrupy drink.
["Julep" i]
''New English Dictionary on Historical Principles''
Similarly i
''An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language''
by Walter W. Skeat, year 1888. Like the words candy, sugar, and syrup, "julep" arrived in English in late medieval times in association with imports of cane sugar from Arabic-speaking lands. Like syrup, julep's early records in English are mostly in medicine writers.
;
jumper (dress or pullover sweater) : جبّة ''jubba'', an outer garment.
In Western languages the word is first seen in southern Italy in Latin in 1053 and 1101 as , meaning an expensive garment and made of silk, not otherwise described. Mid-12th-century Latin and late-12th-century French ''jupe'' meant some kind of luxury jacket garment. In English, the 14th-century , 15th-century ''iowpe , jowpe'', 17th-century ''jup'', ''juppe'', and ''jump'', 18th ''jupo'' and ''jump'', 19th ''jump'' and ''jumper'', all meant jacket.
Addendum for words that may or may not be of Arabic ancestry
;
garbage : This English word is not found in bygone centuries in French or other languages. The early meaning in English was poultry entrails and its earliest known record in English is 1422.
Its parentage is not clear. Some nouns formed by suffixing -age to verbs in late medieval English and not found in French: cartage (1305), leakage (1444 ), steerage (1399 ), stoppage (1465), towage (1327).
[As documented in th]
''Middle English Dictionary'' (the "MED")
Garbage is arguably from English garble = "to sift" (first known record 1393
), which clearly came to English through the Romance languages from Arabic ''gharbal'' = "to sift". The forms "garbellage" and "garblage" meaning the garbage or inferior material removed by sifting, are recorded spottily in English from the 14th through 18th centuries and those are clearly from garble.
;
genet/genetta (nocturnal mammal) : Seen in 13th-century English,
13th-century French and Catalan, and 12th-century Portuguese.
It is absent from medieval Arabic writings.
[''Glossaire des mots espagnols et portugais dérivés de l'arabe'']
by R. Dozy & W.H. Engelmann. 430 pages. Published in 1869. Nevertheless, an oral dialectical Maghrebi Arabic source for the European word has been suggested. جرنيط ''jarnait'' = "genet" is attested in the 19th century in Maghrebi dialect. But the absence of attestation in Arabic in any earlier century must make Arabic origin questionable.
;
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
: The name is ultimately descended from ancient Greek ''
kithara'', which was a plucked string musical instrument of the
lyre type. Classical and medieval Latin had ''cithara'' as a lyre and more loosely a plucked string instrument. So did the medieval Romance languages. ''Cithara'' was pronounced "sitara". ''Cithara'' is unlikely to be the parent of the French ''quitarre'' (c. 1275), French ''guiterne'' (c. 1280), French (c. 1285), Italian ''chitarra'' (c. 1305; pronounced "kitarra"), and Spanish ''guitarra'' (1330–1343), each meaning a
gittern
The gittern was a relatively small gut-strung, round-backed instrument that first appears in literature and pictorial representation during the 13th century in Western Europe (Iberian Peninsula, Italy, France, England). It is usually depicted pl ...
type guitar. The reason it is unlikely: A change from ''ci-'' to any of ''qui- , gui- , ki- , chi-'' has almost no parallel change in form in other words within the Romance languages around that time; i.e., change from sound /s/ to sound /k/ or /g/ is a rarity. Hence the ''qui- , gui- , ki- , chi-'' form (which is essentially all one form) is believed to have been introduced from an external source. A minority of dictionaries report the external source was medieval Greek ''kithára'' = "lyre, and more loosely a plucked string instrument", a common word in medieval Greek records. A majority of dictionaries report the external source was Arabic قيتارة ''qītāra'' , كيثرة ''kaīthara'', with the same meaning as the Greek. An Arabic name of roughly the form ''qītāra , kaīthār'' is extremely rare in medieval Arabic records, which undermines the idea that Arabic was the source. Lute and tanbur on this list are descended from names that are common in medieval Arabic records for guitar-type musical instruments.
;
hazard : Medieval French ''hasart , hasard , azard'' had the primary meaning of a game of
dice and especially a game of dice where money was gambled. The early records are in northern French and the first is about year 1150 as ''hasart'',
with multiple records of ''hasart'' in northern France about year 1200,
and Anglo-Norman ''hasart'' is in England before 1216,
[''Hasart'' in the Anglo-Norman Dictionary]
quoting from the text ''Le Petit Plet'' which is dated early 13th century before year 1216. Th
Anglo-Norman Dictionary
also documents from before year 1216 Anglo-Norman ''hasardur'' = "person who plays the hasard dice game", and from circa 1240 Anglo-Norman ''hasardrie'' = "hazardry, i.e. hazarding money in the dice game called hazard". These records underscore that the root-word was well-established in Norman French before it started to show up in Italian (first known record c. 1250) or Spanish (first known record 1283). and Anglo-Norman has ''hasardur'' and ''hasardrie'' at and before 1240,
which is followed by Italian ''açar'' about 1250 with the same meaning as ''hasart , hasard'', and Italian-Latin and later in the 13th century, and Spanish ''azar'' starting around 1250, and English ''hasard'' about 1300.
According to its etymology summary in a number of today's dictionaries, the French word was descended through Spanish from an unattested Arabic oral dialectical ''az-zār , az-zahr'' = "the dice" – but that is an extremely improbable proposition because that word has no record in Arabic with that meaning until the early 19th century. An alternative proposition, having the advantage of attestation in medieval Arabic, derives it from medieval Arabic يسر ''yasar'' = "playing at dice". Conceivably this might have entered French through the Crusader States of the Levant. The French word is of obscure origin.
Footnotes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arabic Loanwords In English
Lists of English words of Arabic origin