alfalfa

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish alfalfa,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} recorded in Spanish from about 1250,^[2] beside the earlier Spanish form alfalfez.^[3][6][8][1] Klein takes alfalfez as the intermediate form between the Arabic word and alfalfa.^[9] The Spanish word is from Arabic الْفَصْفَصَة (al-faṣfaṣa),^{[1][2][5][4][9]} the definite article with the Spanish Arabic word for lucerne, a variant of the literary Arabic word;^[2][4][5] Hoad and Barnhart gloss the Arabic word as "the best kind of fodder", the Oxford Dictionary of English as "a green fodder".^[6][7][10] The OED derives the literary Arabic word from Persian, already found in Middle Persian aspast.^[2] The American Heritage Dictionary traces it, probably through Coptic and Aramaic, to that Middle Persian word, and further to an Old Iranian compound, Proto-Iranian *aspa-sti- (“alfalfa, clover”),^[5][3] which Etymonline, after Watkins, analyses as *aspa- (“horse”), from Proto-Indo-European *ekwo- (“horse”), with a suffix meaning food, from *ed- (“to eat”).^[3][5] Some early English forms, alfarfa, come from the American Spanish variant alfarfa of Mexico and New Mexico, recorded from 1714.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The forage plant Medicago sativa, lucerne: the OED's first quotation is from 1764, in W. Harte's Essays on Husbandry.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1791,^[4] and Barnhart and Etymonline give 1845, Barnhart from Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle.^[7][3]

Semantic evolution

The plant is native to south-western Asia and is grown chiefly for fodder;^[2][10] alfalfa became its common name in North America, while British English usually calls it lucerne.^[3][11][12] In American slang of the late 19th and early 20th century, alfalfa meant a beard or whiskers (from 1895), and as an adjective, rustic or countrified (from 1906).^[13]

Timeline

• 1764 – the forage plant lucerne.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to 1791, Barnhart and Etymonline to 1845.^[4][7][3]
• 1895 – in American slang, a beard or whiskers.^[13]
• 1906 – in American slang, as an adjective, rustic, countrified.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A leguminous plant (Medicago sativa) with leaves of three leaflets and small bluish-purple flowers, grown mainly for hay and fodder; lucerne.^{[4][14][2][10]}
2. (US slang, dated) A beard or whiskers.^[13]

Word family

• alfalfa butterfly
• alfalfa weevil

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
13. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins