Ramadan

Etymology

It is borrowed from Arabic رمضان (ramaḍān),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} in the earlier forms partly through Turkish ramazan and Persian, where the word is pronounced with z,^[2][5][7][4] and partly through other European languages: the OED compares Middle French ramadan (1441) and ramazan, Spanish ramadán and Italian ramadan (1422).^[2] The Arabic name is from رمض (ramaḍ, “intense heat, dryness”),^[3][8] from a root meaning to be burnt, scorched or hot,^{[3][4][5][6][9]} so that it was originally "the hot month".^[4][5][8] Klein relates the root to a Mishnaic Hebrew word for hot ashes or embers.^[10][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The ninth month of the Islamic year, the month of fasting: before 1500, in the form Ramazan, in an English translation of Alain Chartier's Traité de l'Espérance,^[2][5] translating a French passage that has ramazan.^[2] The spelling Ramadan is recorded from the 1590s,^[5][11] 1601 in Barnhart.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Because the Islamic calendar is lunar, the month moves about eleven days earlier each year and passes through every season,^[9][5][7] but it is thought to have fallen originally in the hot season, which explains the name;^{[7][9][12][5]} the Shorter Oxford calls the reason for the name uncertain.^[13] In English the word also came to mean the fast itself, kept from dawn to sunset.^[11][8] The Turkish and Persian pronunciation survived in the variant Ramazan,^[4][8][11] and Ramadhan is a less common spelling.^[11][8]

Timeline

• before 1500 – Ramazan, the month of fasting.^[2][5]
• 1590s – the spelling Ramadan.^[5][11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The ninth month of the Islamic calendar, during which Muslims fast each day from dawn to sunset.^[8][11][2]
2. The fast kept during this month: They broke the Ramadan fast together each evening.^[11][8]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press