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.

To qualify for this list, a word must be reported in etymology dictionaries as having descended from Arabic. A handful of dictionaries have been used as the source for the list. 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

A

;admiral
: أمير ''amīr'', military commander, also Emir. ''Amīr'' is common in medieval Arabic as a commander on land (not sea). In medieval Latin it has lots records as a specifically Muslim military leader or emir.A set of usage examples of medieval Latin ''amiræus, ammiratus, ammirandus, amirallus, admiratus, admiralius'' is i
Du Cange's Glossary of Medieval Latin
In medieval Latin the word carrying the meaning of a specifically Muslim commander starts earlier than the meaning of a naval commander. The same is true in Old French. The earliest in Old French is in a well-known long ballad about war-battles between Christians and Muslims, the ''Chanson de Roland'', dated circa 1100, which contains about three dozen instances of ''amirail'' or ''amiralz'' (plural) meaning exclusively a Muslim military leader on land �
ref
Two late 12th-century examples with the same meaning are cited in the dictionary of Anglo-Norman French �
ref
In French, the word meaning admiral of the sea has its first known record circa 1208 in the Crusader chronicler Geoffrey of Villehardouin (died circa 1212)
Ref
Later in medieval French, it is commonly spelled both ''amiral'' and ''admiral'', with both spellings having both meanings �
Amiral , Admiral @ Dictionnaire du Moyen Français
The same is true in late medieval English; se
Amiral , Admiral @ Middle English Dictionary
A Latin record of a different kind comes from Sicily in 1072, the year the Latins defeated the Arabs in Sicily at the capital city Palermo. In that year, after about 300 years of Arabic rule in Sicily, a new military governing official at Palermo was assigned as "Knight, to be for the Sicilians the ''amiratus''", where ''-atus'' is a Latin grammar suffix. This title continued in mainly non-marine use over the next century among the Latins at Palermo, usually spelled ''am ratus''; spelled ''amiraldus'' in year 1113 where ''-aldus'' is a Latin suffix that functions much the same as ''-atus''; ''ammiral'' year 1112 influenced by Latin suffix ''-alis''. In 1178 (and earlier) the person holding the title ''amiratus'' at Palermo was put in charge of the navy of the Kingdom of Sicily.An in-depth treatment of the origin and early history of the Western word "admiral" is in the book ''Amiratus-Aμηρας: L'Emirat et les Origines de l'Amirauté, XIe-XIIIe Siècles'', by Léon Robert Ménager, year 1960, 255 pages, including chapter headed "La naissance du terme "amiral" ". A 1963 book review of Ménager's book has some info about the subject of the book in English i
Journal ''Speculum'', Vol 38 number 2, pages 371-373
The article "Le point sur l'origine du mot ''amiral''", by Omar Bencheikh, 5 pages, year 2003 (published by Bulletin de la SELEFA)
ONLINE
is primarily interested in showing that the Arabic ''amīr'' = "commander" was not in use meaning a sea commander in Arabic at the time when the Latins started using the word in the sense of sea commander in the 15th through 18th centuries. This is consistent with Ménager's documentation that the word evolved as a title of governance within Norman Sicily from an original meaning of a commander on land in Norman Sicily. More on the 12th-century ''amiratus'' in Norman Sicily is contained in the boo
''The Administration of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily''
by Hiroshi Takayama, year 1993. And more notes on the word's early history in the West are i
''Arabismi Medievali di Sicilia''
by Girolamo Caracausi, year 1150 on pages 102-105 (in Italian) an
''Arabismen im Deutschen''
by Raja Tazi, year 1998 on pages 184-186 (in German). After that start, the use of the word to mean an Admiral of the Sea was taken up in the maritime republic of Genoa starting in 1195 as ''amirato'', and spread throughout the Latin Mediterranean in the 13th century. Medieval Latin word-forms included ''ammiratus, ammirandus, amirallus, admiratus, admiralius'', while in late medieval French and English the usual word-forms were ''amiral'' and ''admiral''. The insertion of the letter 'd' was undoubtedly influenced by allusion to the word admire, a classical Latin word.

;adobe : الطوبة ''al-tūba , at-tūba'',Arabic ''al-'' = "the". In Arabic where ''tūba'' means brick, "the brick" is written ''al-tūba'' but universally pronounced "''at-tūba''". Similarly, the written ''al-sumūt'' ("the paths") is always pronounced "''as-sumūt''". Similarly, ''al-nīl'' is always pronounced "''an-nīl''". This pronunciation applies to ''al-'' in front of about half of the Arabic consonants. In front of the other half the ''al-'' is pronounced ''al-''. the brick. The word is in a number of medieval Arabic dictionaries meaning "brick". The Arabic dictionary of Al-Jawhari dated about year 1000 made the comment that the Arabic word had come from the Coptic language of Egypt.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's ''"Al-Sihah"'' which is dated around and shortly after year 1000. The biggest is Ibn Manzur'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. In European languages the early records are in medieval Spanish spelled ''adoba , adova'' and ''adobe'' with the same meaning as today's Spanish ''adobe'', "sun-dried brick". Other cases of Arabic 't' becoming medieval Spanish 'd' include '' :es:Ajedrez, :es:Algodón, :es:Badana, :es:Badea''.''Glossaire des mots espagnols et portugais dérivés de l'arabe''
by R. Dozy & W.H. Engelmann. 430 pages. Published in 1869. The word entered English from Mexico in the 18th and 19th centuries.

; afrit (mythology) : عفريت ''ʿifrīt'', an ancient demon popularized by the '' 1001 Arabian Nights'' tales.

;albatross : The medieval Arabic source-word was probably الغطّاس ''al-ghattās'' which literally meant "the diver", and meant birds who caught fish by diving, and sometimes meant the diving waterbirds of the pelecaniform class, including cormorants.Several bird-names in Spanish are established as having entered Spanish from Arabic during the medieval era. They include today's Spanish ''alcaraván'' = "curlew bird" from medieval Arabic ''al-karawān'' = "curlew bird" and today's Spanish ''zorzal'' = "thrush and similar bird" from medieval Arabic ''zurzūr'' = "starling bird". The late medieval Spanish ''alcatraz'' = "seafish-catching large bird", such as pelican or cormorant or gannet bird, is presumed by everybody to be from an Arabic word. But it is not very clear what the Arabic word was. On looking at candidate words, Arabic ''al-ghattās'' = "the diver" (from verb غطس ''ghatas'', to dive in water), implying a diving pelecaniform bird, is the one favored today by the dictionaries Concise OED, American Heritage, Merriam-Webster
CNRTL.fr
and some others. ''Al-ghattās'' is a fish-catching diving bird in chapters about birds by Ahmad al-Qalqashandi (died 1418
(Ref)
Yaqut al-Hamawi (died 1229) and Zakariya al-Qazwini (died 1283
(Ref)
In modern Arabic ''al-ghattās'' is a grebe (a diving waterbird of a different class) and also means a human skin-diver. This candidate word has the problem that the phonetic alterations involved in moving from ''al-ghattās'' to ''alcatraz'' are irregular and unusual: In Iberian Romance loanwords from Arabic, a conversion of ''gh-'' to ''c-'' is very rare, and an insertion of ''-r-'' is uncommon. The candidate favored by older dictionaries (including the dictionaries b
Devic 1876
Skeat 1888, Weekley 1921) is Arabic ''al-qādūs'' = "bucket of a water wheel (hopper)", which certainly became Portuguese ''alcatruz'' well-documented with the same meaning, which in turn, it is speculatively proposed, became Portuguese and Spanish ''alcatraz'' = "a pelican with a bucket-like beak". One problem with this idea is that, although ''alcatraz'' has records meaning pelican, it also has records meaning cormorant and in the 16th century frigatebird and also gannet, which are large diving seabirds without a bucket-like beak. (These records are acknowledged by Devic (1876) and his followers). Moreover the word's early records have no highlighting of a bucket-like beak. The very earliest known record, which is in Spanish in year 1386, says "birds that maintain themselves on fish such as sea-eagles and ''alcatraces'' and other birds of the sea", and a relatively early record in Spanish at around 1440 speaks of "...pigeons and vultures and ''alcatrazes''" – cited i
''Los Arabismos del Castellano en la Baja Edad Media''
by Maíllo Salgado, year 1998. More early records in Spanish are a

The fact that ''al-qādūs'' (the waterwheel bucket) is certainly the parent of ''alcatruz'' (the waterwheel bucket) lends phonetic support to the view that ''al-ghattās'' can be the parent of ''alcatraz''. From this or some other Arabic word, late medieval Spanish has ''alcatraz'' meaning pelecaniform-type large diving seabird. From the Spanish, it entered English in the later 16th century as ''alcatras'' with the same meaning, and it is also in Italian in the later 16th century as ''alcatrazzi'' with the same meaning. The albatrosses are large diving seabirds that are only found in the Southern Hemisphere and the Pacific Ocean regions. Beginning in the 17th century, every European language adopted "albatros" with a 'b' for these birds, the 'b' having been mobilized from Latinate ''alba'' = "white".

;alchemy, chemistry : الكيمياء ''al-kīmīāʾ'', alchemy and medieval chemistry, and especially "studies about substances through which the generation of gold and silver may be artificially accomplished". In Arabic the word had its origin in a Greek alchemy word that had been in use in the early centuries AD in Alexandria in Egypt in Greek. The Arabic word entered Latin as ''alchimia'' in the 12th century and was widely circulating in Latin in the 13th century. In medieval Latin ''alchimia'' was strongly associated with the quest to make gold out of other metals but the scope of the word also covered the full range of what was then known about chemistry and metallurgy."Alchemy vs. Chemistry"
by William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, in journal ''Early Science and Medicine'' Vol. 3, No. 1 (year 1998), pages 32-65, which is an historical review of the meanings of the words "alchemy" and "chemistry" in Europe up to the 18th century. Partially reiterated i
"From Alchemy to 'Chymistry' "
by William R Newman, a chapter in ''The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 3, Early Modern Science'', year 2006, pages 497-517. See also Etymology of chemistry : From alchemy to chemistry. Late medieval Latin had the word-forms ''alchimicus'' = "alchemical" and ''alchimista'' = "alchemist". By deletion of ''al-'', those word-forms gave rise to the Latin word-forms ''chimia'', ''chimicus'' and ''chimista'' beginning in the mid 16th century. The word-forms with and without the ''al-'' were synonymous until the end of the 17th century; the meaning of each of them covered both alchemy and chemistry.

;alcohol : الكحل ''al-kohl'', very finely powdered stibnite (Sb₂S₃) or galena (PbS) or any similar fine powder. The word with that meaning entered Latin in the 13th century spelled ''alcohol''. In Latin in the 14th and 15th centuries the sole meaning was a very fine-grained powder, made of any material. In various cases the powder was obtained by crushing, but in various other cases the powder was obtained by calcination or by sublimation & deposition. In the alchemy and medicine writer Theophrastus Paracelsus (died 1541), the ''alcohol'' powders produced by sublimation & deposition were viewed as kinds of distillates, and with that mindset he extended the word's meaning to distillate of wine. "Alcohol of wine" (ethanol) has its first known record in Paracelsus. The biggest-selling English dictionary of the 18th century (Bailey's) defined alcohol as "a very fine and impalpable powder, or a very pure well rectified spirit."

; alcove : القبّة ''al-qobba'', vault, dome or cupola. That sense for the word is in medieval Arabic dictionaries. The same sense is documented for Spanish ''alcoba'' around 1275. ''Alcoba'' semantically evolved in Spanish during the 14th to 16th centuries. ''Alcoba'' begot French ''alcove'', earliest known record 1646,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. and French begot English.

; alembic (distillation apparatus) : الانبيق ''al-anbīq'', "the still" (for distilling). The Arabic root is traceable to Greek ''ambix'' = "cup". The earliest chemical distillations were by Greeks in Alexandria in Egypt in about the 3rd century AD. Their ''ambix'' became the 9th-century Arabic ''al-anbīq'', which became the 12th-century Latin ''alembicus''.

;alfalfa : الفصفصة ''al-fisfisa'', alfalfa.The 12th-century Andalusian Arabic agriculture writer Ibn Al-Awwam talks about how to cultivate alfalfa and his name for alfalfa is ''al-fisfisa'' �
refref
The 13th-century Arabic dictionary ''Lisan al-Arab'' says ''al-fisfisa'' is cultivated as an animal feed and consumed in both fresh and dried form �
فصفصة @ Baheth.info
. In medieval Arabic another name for alfalfa was ''al-qatt'' �
قتت @ Baheth.info
. But ''al-fisfisa'' appears to have been the most common name for alfalfa. For example the entry for ''al-qatt'' in the 11th-century dictionary '' al-Sihāh'' says ''al-qatt'' is another word for ''al-fisfisa'' without saying what ''al-fisfisa'' is. In the Arabic of Andalusia a pronunciation as AL-FASFASA has some indirect documentatio
(ref)
In mutation from the Andalusian Arabic word, some late medieval Spanish records have it as ''alfalfez'' and some late medieval Catalan records have it as ''alfáffeç'' and ''alfaça'' meaning alfalfa (where ç = z), as reported b
Dozy year 1869Corriente year 2008
an
''Diccionari del castellà del segle XV a la Corona d'Aragó'' (year 2013)
The Arabic entered medieval Spanish. In medieval Spain alfalfa had a reputation as the best fodder for horses. The ancient Romans grew alfalfa but called it an entirely different name; history of alfalfa. The English name started in the far-west US in the mid-19th century from Spanish ''alfalfa''.

;algebra : الجبر ''al-jabr'', completing, or restoring broken parts. The word's mathematical use has its earliest record in Arabic in the title of the book ''"al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wa al-muqābala"'', translatable as " The Compendium on Calculation by Restoring and Balancing", by the 9th-century mathematician Mohammed Ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. This algebra book was translated to Latin twice in the 12th century. In medieval Arabic mathematics, ''al-jabr'' and ''al-muqābala'' were the names of the two main preparatory steps used to solve an algebraic equation and the phrase "''al-jabr'' and ''al-muqābala''" came to mean "method of equation-solving". The medieval Latins borrowed the method and the names.

;alidade: العضادة ''al-ʿiḍāda'' (from ''ʿiḍad'', pivoting arm), the rotary dial for angular positioning on the Astrolabe surveying instrument used in astronomy. The word with that meaning was used by, e.g., the astronomers Abū al-Wafā' Būzjānī (died 998) and Abu al-Salt (died 1134). The word with the same meaning entered Latin in the later Middle Ages in the context of Astrolabes. Crossref azimuth, which entered the European languages on the same pathway.

;alkali : القلي ''al-qalī , al-qilī'', an alkaline material derived from the ashes of plants, specifically plants that grew on salty soils – glassworts aka saltworts. The dictionary of Al-Jawhari (died c. 1003) said "''al-qilī'' is obtained from glassworts". In today's terms, the medieval ''al-qalī'' was mainly composed of sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate. The Arabs used it as an ingredient in making glass and making soap. The word's early records in the West are in Latin alchemy texts in and around the early 13th century, with the same meaning as the Arabic.

;ambergris and possibly amber: عنبر ''ʿanbar'', meaning ambergris, i.e. a waxy material produced in the stomach of sperm whales and used historically for perfumery. From Arabic sellers of ambergris, the word passed into the Western languages in the mid-medieval centuries as ''ambra'' with the same meaning as the Arabic. In the late medieval centuries the Western word took on the additional meaning of amber, from causes not understood. The two meanings – ambergris and amber – then co-existed for more than four centuries. "Ambergris" was coined to eliminate the ambiguity (the color of ambergris is grey more often than not, and ''gris'' is French for grey). It wasn't until about 1700 that the ambergris meaning died out in English amber.

; anil, aniline, polyaniline : النيل ''al-nīl , an-nīl'', indigo dye. Arabic word came from Sanskrit ''nili'' = "indigo". The indigo dye originally came from tropical India. From medieval Arabic, anil became the usual word for indigo in Portuguese and Spanish. Indigo dye was uncommon throughout Europe until the 16th century; history of indigo dye. In English anil is a natural indigo dye or the tropical American plant it is obtained from. Aniline is a technical word in dye chemistry dating from mid-19th-century Europe.

;apricot: البرقوق ''al-barqūq'', apricot. Arabic is in turn traceable back to Early Byzantine Greek and thence to classical Latin ''praecoqua'', literally "precocious" and specifically precociously ripening peaches,Reported in ''An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language'', by Walter W. Skeat, year 1888
Downloadable
i.e. apricots. The Arabic was passed onto the late medieval Spanish ''albarcoque'' and Catalan ''albercoc'', each meaning apricot. Early spellings in English included abrecok (year 1551), abrecox (1578), apricock (1593), each meaning apricot. The letter 't' in today's English apricot has come from French. In French it starts around the 1520s as ''abricot'' and ''aubercot'' meaning apricot.

;arsenal : دار صناعة ''dār sināʿa'', literally "house of manufacturing" but in practice in medieval Arabic it meant government-run manufacturing, usually for the military, most notably for the navy. In the Italian maritime republics in the 12th century the word was adopted to designate a naval dockyard, a place for building ships and military armaments for ships, and repairing armed ships. In the later-medieval centuries the biggest such arsenal in Europe was the Arsenal of Venice. 12th-century Italian-Latin has the spellings ''darsena'', ''arsena'' and ''tarsanatus''. In 14th-century Italian and Italian-Latin the spellings included ''terzana, arzana, arsana, arcenatus, tersanaia, terzinaia, darsena'', and 15th-century ''tarcenale'', all meaning a shipyard and in only some cases having naval building activity. In 16th-century French and English an ''arsenal'' was either a naval dockyard or an arsenal, or both. In today's French ''arsenal'' continues to have the same dual meanings as in the 16th century.

;artichoke : الخرشف ''al-kharshuf'' , الخرشوف ''al-kharshūf'', artichoke. The word with that meaning has records in medieval Andalusi and Maghrebi Arabic, including at around year 1100. With the same meaning, Spanish ''alcachofa'' (circa 1400), Spanish ''carchofa'' (1423), Spanish ''alcarchofa'' (1423), Italian ''carciofjo'' (circa 1525) are phonetically close to the Arabic precedent, and so are today's Spanish ''alcachofa'', today's Italian ''carciofo''. It is not clear how the word mutated to French ''artichault'' (1538), northern Italian ''articiocch'' (circa 1550), northern Italian ''arcicioffo'' (16th century), English ''archecokk'' (1531), English ''artochock'' (1542),Early records in Spanish of ''alcachofa , carchofa , alcarchofa'' = "artichoke" are cited i
''Los Arabismos'', by Maíllo Salgado, year 1998
Instances in 16th century Italian are cited i
artichaut @ CNRTL.fr
an
artichoke @ NED
The NED also has the early records in English. The ancient Greeks and Romans commonly ate artichokes, as documented i
"Plants and Progress", by Michael Decker, year 2009, on pages 201-203
It is thought, but more evidence is desirable, that an improved artichoke cultivar arrived late in the medieval era and was the impetus for the spread of the new name in Europe in the 15th and early 16th centuries. but the etymology dictionaries unanimously say these have to be mutations of the Spanish and Italian word.

;assassin : الحشيشية ''al-hashīshīya'' , حشيشين ''hashīshīn'', an Arabic nickname for the Nizari Ismaili religious sect in the Levant during the Crusades era. This sect carried out assassinations against chiefs of other sects, including Crusading Christians, and the story circulated throughout Western Europe at the time (13th century and late 12th). Medievally in Latin & Italian & French, the sect was called the ''Assissini , Assassini''. Medievally in Arabic texts the wordform is ''al-hashīshīya'', but by Arabic grammar this can be put in the form ''hashīshīn'' also. ''Hashīshīn'' is surely the wordform that the Latin Crusaders borrowed in the Levant. By well-known aspects of Latin & Italian & French phonetics, it is well understood why the wordform got phonetically changed from the Arabic ''Hashīshīn'' to the Latinate ''Assissini''."Genesis of the word ''Assassin''" is §610 of the boo
''History of the Ismailis''
by Mumtaz Ali Tajddin (1998). Additional information at
assassin @ NED

assassin @ CNRTL.fr


; an

The generalization of the sect's nickname to the meaning of any sort of assassin happened in Italian at the start of the 14th century. The word with the generalized meaning was often used in Italian in the 14th and 15th centuries. In the mid 16th century the Italian word entered French, followed a little later by English.

; attar (of roses): عطر ''ʿitr'', perfume, aroma. The English word came from the Hindi/Urdu-speaking area of northeast India in the late 18th century and its source was the Hindi/Urdu ''atr , itr'' = "perfume", which had come from the Persian ''ʿitr'' = "perfume", and the Persian had come medievally from the Arabic ''ʿitr''.

;aubergine : البادنجان ''al-bādinjān'', aubergine. The plant is native to India. It was unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans. It was introduced to the Mediterranean region by the medieval Arabs. The Arabic name entered Iberian Romance languages late medievally, producing late medieval Spanish ''alberengena'' = "aubergine" and Catalan ''alberginia'' = "aubergine". The Catalan was the parent of the French ''aubergine'', which starts in the mid-18th century and which embodies a change from al- to au- that happened in French.

;average : عوار ''ʿawār'', a defect, or anything defective or damaged, including partially spoiled merchandise; and عواري ''ʿawārī'' (also عوارة ''ʿawāra'') = "of or relating to ''ʿawār'', a state of partial damage". Within the Western languages the word's history begins in medieval sea-commerce on the Mediterranean. 12th and 13th century Genoa Latin ''avaria'' meant "damage, loss and non-normal expenses arising in connection with a merchant sea voyage"; and the same meaning for ''avaria'' is in Marseille in 1210, Barcelona in 1258 and Florence in the late 13th. 15th-century French ''avarie'' had the same meaning, and it begot English "averay" (1491) and English "average" (1502) with the same meaning. Today, Italian ''avaria'', Catalan ''avaria'' and French ''avarie'' still have the primary meaning of "damage". The huge transformation of the meaning in English began with the practice in later medieval and early modern Western merchant-marine law contracts under which if the ship met a bad storm and some of the goods had to be thrown overboard to make the ship lighter and safer, then all merchants whose goods were on the ship were to suffer proportionately (and not whoever's goods were thrown overboard); and more generally there was to be proportionate distribution of any ''avaria''. From there the word was adopted by British insurers, creditors, and merchants for talking about their losses as being spread across their whole portfolio of assets and having a mean proportion. Today's meaning developed out of that, and started in the mid-18th century, and started in English.The Arabic origin of ''avaria'' was first reported by Reinhart Dozy in the 19th century. Dozy's original summary is in his 1869 boo
''Glossaire''
Summary information about the word's early records in Italian-Latin, Italian, Catalan, and French is a
''avarie'' @ CNRTL.fr
The seaport of Genoa is the location of the earliest-known record in European languages, year 1157. A set of medieval Latin records of ''avaria'' at Genoa is in the downloadable lexico
''Vocabolario Ligure''
by Sergio Aprosio, year 2001, ''avaria'' in Volume 1 pages 115-116. Many more records in medieval Latin at Genoa are a
StoriaPatriaGenova.it
usually in the plurals ''avariis'' and ''avarias''. At the port of Marseille in the 1st half of the 13th century notarized commercial contracts have dozens of instances of Latin ''avariis'' (ablative plural of ''avaria''), as published i
Blancard year 1884
Some information about the English word over the centuries is a
NED (year 1888)
See also the definition of English "average" in English dictionaries published in the early 18th century, i.e., in the time period just before the big transformation of the meaning
Kersey-Phillips' dictionary (1706)Blount's dictionary (1707 edition)Hatton's dictionary (1712)Bailey's dictionary (1726)Martin's dictionary (1749)
Some complexities surrounding the English word's history are discussed i
Hensleigh Wedgwood year 1882 page 11
an
Walter Skeat year 1888 page 781
Today there is consensus that: (#1) today's English "average" descends from medieval Italian ''avaria'', Catalan ''avaria'', and (#2) among the Latins the word ''avaria'' started in the 12th century and it started as a term of Mediterranean sea-commerce, and (#3) there is no root for ''avaria'' to be found in Latin, and (#4) a substantial number of Arabic words entered Italian, Catalan and Provençal in the 12th and 13th centuries starting as terms of Mediterranean sea-commerce, and (#5) the Arabic ''ʿawār , ʿawārī'' is phonetically a good match for ''avaria'', as conversion of w to v was regular in Latin and Italian, and ''-ia'' is a suffix in Italian, and the Western word's earliest records are in Italian-speaking locales (writing in Latin). And most commentators agree that (#6) the Arabic ''ʿawār , ʿawārī'' = "damage , relating to damage" is semantically a good match for ''avaria'' = "damage or damage expenses". A minority of commentators have been dubious about this on the grounds that the early records of Italian-Latin ''avaria'' have, in some cases, a meaning of "an expense" in a more general sense �

The majority view is that the meaning of "an expense" was an expansion from "damage and damage expense", and the chronological order of the meanings in the records supports this view, and the broad meaning "an expense" was never the most commonly used meaning. On the basis of the above points, the inferential step is made that the Latinate word came or probably came from the Arabic word.

;azimuth : السموت ''al-sumūt , as-sumūt'', the directions, the azimuths. The word was in use in medieval Arabic astronomy including with the Arabic version of the Astrolabe instrument. It was borrowed into Latin in the mid 12th century as ''azimuth'' in the context of using Astrolabes. In the mid 13th century in Spanish, ''açumut , açumuth'' is in a set of astronomy books that took heavily from Arabic sources and again Astrolabes is the context of use. The earliest in English is in the 1390s in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Treatise on the Astrolabe'', which used the word about a dozen times.

;azure (colour), lazurite (mineral), azurite (mineral), lazulite (mineral) : لازورد ''lāzward , lāzūard'', lazurite and lapis lazuli, a rock with a vivid blue colour, and this rock was crushed to a powder for use as a blue colourant in inks, paints, eye-makeup, etc. The word is ultimately from the place-name of a large deposit of azure-blue rock in northeastern Afghanistan ("Lajward"), which was the chief and probably the only source-place for the most-desired type of azure-blue rock in the medieval era – the type called Lazurite today. Medievally the word was also used for other types of azure-blue rock that were less costly, especially the type called Azurite today. Latin had ''azurium'' and ''lazurium'' for the rocks, with records starting in the 9th century. Late medieval English had ''azure'' and ''lazurium'' for the rocks. From the powdered rocks, azure was a color-name in all the later-medieval Western languages. Today's Russian, Ukrainian and Polish have the colour-name spelled with the letter 'L' (лазурь, lazur).

B

; benzoin, benzene, benzoic acid : لبان جاوي ''lubān jāwī'', benzoin resin, literally "frankincense of Java". Benzoin is a natural resin from an Indonesian tree. Arab sea-merchants shipped it to the Middle East for sale as perfumery and incense in the later medieval centuries. It first came to Europe in the early 15th century. The European name ''benzoin'' is a great mutation of the Arabic name ''lubān jāwī'' and the linguistic factors that caused the mutation are well understood.''Jāwī'' refers to Java in modern Arabic, but it referred to Sumatra in the medieval travel writer Ibn Batuta (died 1368 or 1369), who said that the best ''lubān jāwī'' came from Sumatra �
Dozy, year 1869
The explanation for how the Arabic "lubān jāwī" got corrupted to the English "benzoin" is as follows, copied partly fro
Benjoin @ CNRTL.fr
The word is seen in Catalan in 1430 spelled ''benjuí'' and in Catalan the definite article was ''lo''. It is seen in French in 1479 spelled ''benjuyn'' and in French the definite article was ''le''. In French the letter J is pronounced not far from the neighborhood of ''zh'' (as in "soup du zhour") and that is similar to the Arabic letter J (ج). But in Latin and Italian, the letter J is pronounced as a Y (as in "Yuventus"). Therefore writing Z instead of J would be somewhat more phonetic in Latin and Italian. The word is seen in Italian in 1461 spelled ''benzoi'' (Italian i is pronounced like English ee) �
Yule & Burnell 1903
Similarly in Italian in 1510 a traveller in the Arabian peninsula wrote "Zida" for Jeddah and wrote "Azami" for Ajami �
''Travels of Ludovico di Varthema'' (page 7 footnote 3)
Italian ''benzoino'' begins in the 16th century. The appended letter 'n' in Italian ''benzoino'' is a Latinate and Italian suffix (descending from classical Latin '' -inus''). Among European chemists, benzoin resin was the original source for benzoic acid, which when decaboxylated gives benzene

;bezoar: بازهر ''bāzahr'' and بادزهر ''bādzahr'' (from Persian ''pâdzahr''), a type of hard bolus, containing calcium compounds, sometimes formed in the stomachs of goats (and other ruminants). Today in English a bezoar is a medical and veterinary term for a ball of indigestible material that collects in the stomach and fails to pass through the intestines. Goat bezoars were recommended by medieval Arabic medical writers for use as antidotes to poisons, particularly arsenic poisons. That is how the word first entered medieval Latin medical vocabulary.

;borax, borate, boron : بورق ''būraq'', various salts, including borax. Borax (i.e., sodium borate) was in use medievally primarily as a fluxing agent in soldering gold, silver and metal ornaments. The ancient Greeks and Romans used fluxing agents in metalworking, but borax was unknown to them. In medieval Europe there was no borax except as an import from Arabian lands. The Arabs imported at least part of it from India. From Arabic ''būraq'', Latin adopted the name ''borax , baurach'' in the 12th century meaning borax for fluxing metals, and sometimes later more loosely meaning any kind of salts for fluxing metals.Medieval Arabic ''būraq'' encompassed various salts used for various purposes, and the name often came with a qualifier attached to give more specificity. The salts included naturally occurring sodium carbonate (natron) and sodium borate (borax). On the other hand, medieval Arabic ''tinkār'' meant specifically borax. ''Tinkār'' was used primarily as a fluxing agent in soldering metals. It seems the Arabs and Persians were introduced to it from sources in India. The Persian and Arabic name ''tinkār'' probably originated from a Sanskritic word ''tinkana'' meaning borax from Tibet and Cashmere �
H. Grieb, year 2004
The medieval Arabic writer Al-Razi (died c. 930) said that ''tinkār'' is one type of ''būraq'' and another type is "goldsmith's ''būraq''" (meaning a type of salt in customary use by goldsmiths for soldering) – H. Grieb, year 2004. More examples of usage of both ''būraq'' and ''tinkār'' in medieval Arabic are i
ref
an
ref
In late medieval Latin alchemy books it was spelled ''borax'', ''baurac'
(e.g.)
''baurach'
(e.g.)
''boracia'', and other similar, and for some late medieval Latin writers this word had the same broad meaning as in Arabi
(e.g.)
but more usually in late medieval Latin it meant a substance used as a fluxing agent �
e.g.e.g.e.g.
Later-medieval Latin also had ''tincar , atincar , tinkar'', always meaning a fluxing agent, usually borax, not always borax �
e.g.e.g.e.g.e.g.
In the 16th and 17th centuries in European metallurgy literature, non-borax substances could be called ''"borax"'' when they were used as fluxing agents, and borax at that time was often called ''tincar , atincar'', and "Arabian borax", as well as "borax" �
Martin Ruland's year 1612 ''Lexicon Alchemiae''
(in Latin) has the definitions of that era for ''tinckar'', ''borax'', ''boras'', ''baurac'', and '' chrysocolla''. In medieval Arabic the usual name for borax was تنكار ''tinkār''. This name was adopted by the medieval Latins starting in the 12th century as ''tincar , atincar'' with the same meaning. Today's Tincalconite, which is a mineral variant of borax, is descended from the medieval Latin ''tincar'' = "borax", conjoined with ancient Greek ''konis'' = "powder" plus the conventional suffix -ite. "Boron" and "borate" descend from "borax". Bouquet: باقة

Addendum for words that may or may not be of Arabic ancestry

;alizarin: Alizarin is a red dye with considerable commercial usage. The word's first records are in the early 19th century in France as ''alizari''. The origin and early history of the French word is obscure. Questionably, it may have come from the Arabic العصارة ''al-ʿasāra'' = "the juice" (from Arabic root ''ʿasar'' = "to squeeze"). A majority of today's dictionaries endorse the ''al-ʿasāra'' idea, while a minority say the connection with ''al-ʿasāra'' is improbable.

;almanac : This word's earliest securely dated record in the West is in Latin in 1267. A very small number of possibly a little earlier records exist but come with insecure dates. In its early records in Latin it was spelled ''almanac'' and it meant a set of tables detailing movements of astronomical bodies. Namely the movements of the five then-known planets and the moon and the sun. A lot of medieval Arabic writings on astronomy exist, and they don't use a word that can be matched to the Latin ''almanac''. One of the words they do use is " ''zīj''" and another is " ''taqwīm''". The 19th-century Arabic-word-origin experts Engelmann & Dozy said about almanac: "To have the right to argue that it is of Arabic origin, one must first find a candidate word in Arabic" and they found none. There is a medieval Arabic المناخ ''al-munākh'', which would be a good fit phonetically, but it has no semantic connection to the Latin ''almanac''. The origin of the Latin remains obscure.

;amalgam, amalgamate: This word is first seen in European languages in 13th and 14th century Latin alchemy texts, where it meant an amalgam of mercury with another metal, and it was spelled ''amalgama''. It lacks a plausible origin in terms of Latin precedents. In medieval Arabic records the word الملغم ''al-malgham'' , الملغمة ''al-malghama'' meaning "amalgam" is uncommon, but does exist and was used by a number of different Arabic writers. Today some English dictionaries say the Latin was from this Arabic, or probably was. But other dictionaries are unconvinced, and say the origin of the Latin is obscure.Dictionaries reporting the 13th-century Latin ''amalgama'' to be either surely or probably from Arabic ''al-malgham'' include Partridge (1966), Raja Tazi (1998), Random House Dictionary (2001), and Etymonline.com (2010). Loss of the first 'L' in going from ''al-malgham'' to ''amalgama'' (if it occurred) is called dissimilation in linguistics. Documentation in medieval Arabic for ''al-malgham(a)'' = "amalgam" is presented i
''Wörterbuch der klassischen arabischen Sprache''
by Manfred Ullmann, Volume 2, on pages 901 and 902, year 1991, which collects examples from around a dozen different medieval Arabic texts. As an item supplementing Manfred Ullmann's collection, the Arabic dictionary of Ibn Sida (died 1066) states: "any melting substance such as gold, etc. mixed with mercury is called مُلْغَمٌ ''molgham''" �
لغم @ Ibn Sīda's dictionary
Ibn Sida's statement was copied into the dictionary of Ibn Manzur (died 1312) �
لغم @ Lisan al-Arab
The ''Book of Precious Stones'' of Al-Biruni (died 1048), in its chapter on mercury, has grammatical plural ملاغم الذهب... ملاغم الفضة ''malāghim al-dhahab... malāghim al-fida'' = "gold amalgams... silver amalgams"; and elsewhere in the same book Al-Biruni has كالملغمة ''kal-malghama'' meaning a paste consisting of cowdung and salt (where Arabic ''kal-'' = "-like" = "sort of") �
Ref
The Syriac-to-Arabic dictionary of Bar Bahlul (died late 10th century) says in Syriac that a ܡܠܓܡܐ ''malagma'' of mercury with silver is called الملغمة ''al-malghama'' in Arabic – ref
ܐܦܪܘܣܠܝܢܘܢ @ Bar Bahlul column 267, line 25
Additional details about the medieval word are a

;antimony : This word's first known record is in Constantinus Africanus (died circa 1087), who was a widely circulated medical author in later-medieval Latin (crossref borage). His spelling was "antimonium". The medieval meaning was antimony sulfide. Antimony sulfide was well known to the medieval Arabs under the names ''ithmid'' and ''kohl'' and well known to the Latins under the name ''stibi , stibium , stimmi''. The medieval Latin name ''antimonium'' is of obscure origin. Possibly it is a Latinized form of some Arabic name but no clear precedent in Arabic has been found. In the Western European languages other than Latin, in the late medieval period, antimony is a "bookish" word arriving from the Latin. It is found in medical books and alchemy books.

; borage (plant), ''Boraginaceae'' (botanical family) :The borage plant is native to the Mediterranean area. It was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans under other names. The name ''borage'' is from medieval Latin ''borago , borrago , borragine''. The name is first seen in Constantinus Africanus, an 11th-century Latin medical writer and translator whose native language was Arabic and who drew from Arabic medical sources. Many of today's etymology dictionaries suppose the name to be from Arabic and report the proposition that Constantinus took it from أبو عرق ''abū ʿaraq'' = "sweat inducer", because borage leaves supposedly had a sweat-inducing effect and the word would be pronounced ''būaraq'' in Arabic. However, in medieval Arabic no such name is on record for borage, and phonetically the match between ''būaraq'' and ''borrago'' is weak, and Constantinus makes no mention of sweat in connection with borage, and a non-Arabic good alternative proposition exists.

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arabic Loanwords in English
Lists of English words of Arabic origin