Source : Gulf News / 21 May 2013

REAM

Ream is a measure of a quantity of sheets of paper. it comes from the arabic rizma, meaning bale or bundle, and the word arrived with the introduction of paper itself from the arab world in the 1100s and 1200s.

AZURE

Azure is a brilliant blue, and has the same root as Lazurite, a rock with a bright blue colour. The Arabic word, lazward, covering both the rock and colour came from Lajward, which was the name of the site of a huge deposit in Afghanistan.

AVERAGE

Average comes from the arabic awar, meaning ‘defect or anything damaged’ that was imported into italian in the 1100s as ‘avaria’ which referred to ‘damage or loss during a merchant sea voyage’. in time this moved into French as ‘averie’, and in 1491 was used in English as ‘averay’.

ALGORITHM

Algorithm: The word comes directly from the name of the Arab mathematician, Mohammad Musa Al Khwarizmi, who worked in Baghdad in the 800s. It came into Medieval Latin with a much wider meaning before it became algorismus in the 1200s.

ALKALI

Alkali comes from the Arabic word Al Qali, which was made up of sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate used to make soap and glass. Al Jawhari wrote around 1000 that Al Qali is obtained from glassworts.

ASSASSIN

Assassin comes from Arabic word, Al Hashashoon , meaning a hashish eater. This refers back to the Crusades in the 1200s when the leader of the Nizari branch, who ruled northern Persia, would send followers on targeted killing missions with the drug.

CAMEL

Camel appears to be a direct transliteration of the arabic jamal, pronounced in some arabic dialects with a hard G, which brings it even closer to the English word camel. However, the word first came through the Greek kamelos, and then Latin camelus to English.

IODINE

Iodine is a chemical element with a deep purple colour and antiseptic qualities, which draws its name from its arabic name, Youd , although some refer the root back to the Greek word, iodes, which means violet colored.

TURMERIC

Turmeric is a bright yellow aromatic powder widely used in south Asian cooking. it comes from the rhizome of the turmeric plant, known in Arabic as Kurkum from which the English name is derived.

RUKBAH

Rukbah is a star in the 'W' shaped constellation of Cassiopeia, named after the famously beautiful Queen Cassiopeia of classical Greece. the name is originally from arabic rukbah "knee", but this is only one of the famous queen's body parts with an arabic name.

COFFEE

The coffee tree is native to Sudan and Ethiopia. The word coffee derives from the Turkish word kahve and the Arabic word qahwah, which means any stimulating drink, according to Larousse Gastronomique.

FOMALHAUT

Fomalhaut also known as Alpha Piscisaustrini, is the brightest star in the fish-shaped constellation Piscis. the name Fom Al Hoot comes from scientific Arabic fam Al Hoot (Al Janubi) "the mouth of the [Southern] Fish"

COUSCOUS

This popular dish is indigenous to North Africa and used hard semolina. While recipes and variations occur across the region, depending on the spices and meat available, it derives directly from the Arabic kouskous, according to Larousse Gastronomique.

WASAT

Wasat is the traditional name for Delta Geminorum in the zodiac constellation Gemini, made up of the two twins Castor and Pollux. Wasat lies at the centre of Castor, which gives it its arabic name wasat, which means "middle".

CRIMSON

Crimson is a deep red colour that originates from the red that infest the kermes oak, native to the Mediterranean area. It comes from old Spanish cremesin, which is derived from the Arabic qurmuz.

DENEB

Deneb is the brightest star in the swan-shaped constellation Cygnus, and is a direct transliteration of dhanab, the Arabic for "tail", from the phrase Dhanab Al Dajaja, or "tail of the hen".

ALEMBIC

Alembic is a copper pot used in distillation, deriving from the arabic al’ inbiq. Еhe traditional alembic is made up of a boiler, a cap where vapours collect, and a bent pipe which is cooled to collect the distillate, according to Larousse Gastronomique.

UMMA

Umma is the entire community of Muslims bound together by the ties of religion, according to the oxford English dictionary. It is a direct use of the Arabic umma, which means people or community.

TELL

Tell is an archeological term that refers to the buildup of settlements, one on top of another. According to the oxford English Dictionary, tell word derives from arabic tal, meaning a small hill.

TAGINE

Tagine refers to an earthenware cone-shaped cooking pot used almost exclusively in North African cooking. It is derived from the Arabic word tajin or frying pan.

ALTAIR

Altair is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila (Eagle in Latin). The name altair is an abbreviation of the arabic al Nisr Al Ta’ir, the Flying Eagle, which was used in 1650 by the Egyptian astronomer Mohammad al akhsasi.

ERG

Erg is a geographical term used in the Sahara Desert to describe an area of shifting sand. It comes from the Arabic ‘arq, meaning a line of sand dunes. Its basic use in Arabic refers to a blood vein or the root of a plant, and subsequently undulating lines of dunes.

ALDERBAN

Alderban is a bright red star in the middle of the zodiac constellation of Taurus. The name aldebaran comes from the arabic al Dabaran, which means the Follower, because this bright star appears to fpllow the constellation of the Pleides, or the Seven Sisters, in the night sky.

NADIR

Nadir is the direct opposite of zenith, and is the lowest point of any celestial object’s orbit. It also uses the Arabic for pathway, with al samt, as its root, but in this case it is nazir al samt, meaning the opposite on the pathway.

ZENITH

Zenith is the highest point in the sky of a celestial object, and comes from the same root as azimuth, Al Samt meaning path, which in this case was known as samt al ras (path over the head) which was adopted into old French as cenit, before becoming zenith in English.

AZIMUTH

Azimuth is derived from The arabic words zawiyat al samt and is the horizontal part of the direction of a star from the observer, and comes from al samt, meaning path or direction. it is one of many astronomica l terms that came into Medieval Europe from science in the arab world.

JUMPER

A sweater or pullover derived from a sailor’s loose outer jacket. the word arrived in English via the old French adaptation of the arabic word jubba, meaning a robe that can be worn by either sex, the oxford English dictionary says.

GERBIL

There are approximately 150 species of gerbil or desert rats, which are native to North Africa, India and Eastern Asia. In Arabic, the rodents are called jarbu. They spread, along with their usage, into the Iberian Peninsula, with jarbu being distorted into gerbil in old French.

MACRAME

The embroidery form macrame in English has been adopted from both Spanish and French usage describing satin and silks which were heavily embroidered or bejeweled. in arabic, miqrama refers to an embroidered veil and its meaning spread through trade in textiles.

SIROCCO

Sirocco refers to a wind that blows across the north african desert from the east. it’s a Spanish derivative of the word sharqiyyah or eastern in arabic. By the 16th Century, sirocco was adopted from Spanish into English to describe warm easterly winds.

ALBATROSS

To early Arab mariners and voyagers, the bird with the largest wingspan was impressive in the manner in which it dove into the Al Ghattas means diver, with Albatross being a derivative, spreading through the seaboards of western Europe.

MONSOON

Monsoon rains occur in the period between June and September in southeast Asia. Monsoon derives from the Arabic word mawsim meaning season. The word was adopted into English as a result of mid-to-late 18th century English travellers to the Indian subcontinent.

ALCOVE

Alcove derives from the Arabic word A l Qubbah which refers to a vault, as in a vaulted ceiling or dome. Islamic architectural style and engineering was introduced into Andalusia on the Iberian Peninsula before being copied throughout medieval Europe.

MATTRESS

The word mattress derives from the Arabic word matrah, meaning a large cushion or soft rug to lie upon. It came to English use in the 14th Century after spreading from Spain into France at the turn of the 10th Century

SUMAC

Sumac derives from the Arabic word summaq. Its components have been historically used to spice food, in leather making and the dyeing of cloths and as a traditional herbal medicine for stomach ailments.

SPINACH

Spinach derives from isfanakh in eastern classical Arabic, later evolving to spanekh in Arabic. It was introduced by Arabs to Spain around 10th century, from where it spread to the rest of Europe.

ORANGE

Descends from the Arabic word naranj and the tree itself is native to India. Arabs introduced the orange tree to the Mediterranean region in the early 10th century and was brought to Western Europe by returning Crusaders.

CUMIN

Cumin is the dried seed of the herb Cuminum cyminum, a member of the parsley family and derives from the Arabic word kammun. It was first introduced to Europe in the 12th and 13th Centuries.

SAFFRON

The origin of the word saffron is derived from the Arabic word zafaraan, meaning ‘yellow’ and has been used as a colouring and spice in foods for at least 3,000 years.

AMBER

The English word amber derives from the Arabic anbar, via Medieval Latin ambar and Old French ambre. Amber is used as an ingredient in perfumes, as a healing agent in folk medicine, and as jewelry.

LEMON

Lemons - laymoon in Arabic - are native to India and China and introduced to Persia, Iraq and Egypt around 700 AD. The lemon was first recorded in literature in 10th century Arabic treatise on farming, and was also used as an ornamental plant in early Islamic gardens.

TRAFALGAR

Trafalgar is where Admiral Nelson won the most famous sea battle in British history, off Cape Trafalgar which sticks into the Atlantic from southern Spain. The Arabs called this cape Taraf Al Gharb, the Uttermost West, as it was the most western point of their dominions.

WADI

Wadi is Arabic for valley. However, it has been in common parlance for centuries via Spanish, and perhaps most famously as the site of some of Wellington’s toughest fighting against Napoleonic forces near the Portuguese river Guadalquivir, the wadi Al Kabir.

SUGAR

Sugar - Sukkar in Arabic - was a rare and special commodity in medieval Europe which used honey as a sweetener, which makes it a treat. The first recorded uses of sugar in English was at a monastery in Durham in 1302 when a monk recorded the storage of zuker marok, or Moroccan sugar.

ARTICHOKE

Artichoke is the Arabic Kharshoof, which was borrowed by the Spanish in 1423 as carchiofa and by the Italians in 1525 as carciofo, before changing to the French artichault in 1538 and the English artochock in 1591.

APRICOT

Apricot comes from the Arabic barqooq, which in turn came from Byzantine Greek, which took it from classical Latin praecoqua, meaning precocious ripening peaches. The Arabs passed the word (and fruit) to the Portuguese (albricoque) and Catalan (albercoc), before it finally arrived in English in 1578 as abrecox.

MUSLIN

Muslin is a lightweight cotton cloth in a plain weave that came from Mosul in Iraq, where it was first manufactured. The city gave its name to the cloth which the Italians called mussoline, and the French mousseline.

COTTON

Cotton comes from the Arabic qutn, which came to the Arab world from India after Alexander the Great opened up the markets in 300 BC. When the medieval Arabs traded cotton into Europe, it was so soft it was assumed that it must be an animal product like wool.

PARROT

Parrot finds its origins in the Arabic babbagha, which arrived in Old French in the 1100s as papegai, as the ‘B’ in babbagha swapped to become ‘P’ as frequently happens (like in other Arabic origin words like apricot, calipers, julep, and syrup).

HAREM

Harem is a direct transliteration of the Arabic hareem, meaning women’s quarters in a large household, although the root is the Arabic haram meaning forbidden which indicated the fact that men were not allowed into the women’s area.

CARAT

Carat is a unit of weight for precious stones, and may well come from the Arabic world qirat, defined as the weight of one twenth-fourth of a medieval Arab gold dinar, or the weight of four barley seeds. But the Arabic word seems to have its origin in the Greek keration which may also be an origin for the English carat.

SAFARI

Safari is a Kiswahili word to describe a trip into the wilds of Africa to watch (or hunt) animals, which started in the 1800s in Kenya. The Swahili took the word directly from the Arabic safra, to travel, and is one of many Arabic words used in East Africa.

GHOUL

Ghoul is a terrible ghost, which comes from the Arabic ghool, and first appeared in Europe in 1712 in a French translation of the Arabian Nights. By the 1800s ghouls were frequently popping up in English translations of Arabian Nights, and became part of the language.

CANDY

Candy is a general word for any sweet, but it only arrived in English in 1600s, from the Arabic qand, meaning a hard crystalised mass of sugar, which in turn came from Persian, and in its turn from Sanskrit since cane sugar was developed in India.

GIBRALTAR

Gibraltar is an Arabic name, Jabal Tariq, meaning Mountain of Tariq, after the famous Omayyad general, Tariq Bin Ziad, who led the first Islamic conquest of Spain in 711. Until the Arabs got there, Gibraltar was known as Mons Calpe, one the Pillars of Hercules

MAGAZINE

Magazine is a military store, and it comes from the Arabic makhazin, based on khazan (meaning to store) with the ma- prefix indicating a noun of place. It was first recorded in Marseilles in 1228 as a general store house, but English has always used it as a military store for gunpowder or bullets.

SHUFTI

Shufti: “Take a shufti” is how thousands of English soldiers described ‘taking a look’ when they were posted to Second World War Cairo or later in South Yemen in the 1950s and 1960s, taking the word back to Britain with them. It is derived from the Arabic word shofti.

LUTE

Lute is a direct transliteration of Oud, which is the Arabic for the same instrument. Musicians might argue about how many strings are appropriate, but Spain had its alod in the 1200s, and the first definite English reference was by the late 1300s.

CHEMISTRY

Started with Al Kimya'a, meaning alchemy, which is how it arrived in Europe in a book by Plato Tiburtinus, after which the medieval skills of alchemy gave way to the modern disciplines of chemistry.

ARSENAL

Arsenal is based on Dar Al Sina’a, the House of Manufacturing, and was first used in English in the Fifteenth Century, when it described a dock-yard for repairing ships, which meaning is still used by the Italians with the fuller word darsana.

ALGEBRA

Algebra comes from Al Jabr, meaning to restore broken parts. Its mathematical meaning started with the definitive tome, Al-kitāb al-mukhta’ar fī’isāb al-jabr wa al-muqābala, by the 9th century mathematician Al Khawarizmi.

GIRAFFE

Giraffe - was known to the Arabic lexicographer, Jawahiri, as Al Zarafa, which he rather briefly dismissed as “a type of creature’. Later biologists linked the name more firmly to the long-necked beast of Africa which we all know today.

ADMIRAL

Admiral - comes from the Arabic word Amir Al Bihar, meaning Commander of the Seas, which was a first title used in Norman Sicily. The ‘D’ was added in Elizabethan England, by court officials ignorant of Arabic. The French still use amiral.

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