harem

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ottoman Turkish حرم (harem) and directly borrowed from Arabic حَرَم (ḥaram, “something forbidden; sanctuary; women”),^[1][2][3][4] later also حَرِيم (ḥarīm, “forbidden place”), with the same meaning,^[1][3][5][6] both from an Arabic verb meaning "to be forbidden, be unlawful".^[1][3][7] Etymonline glosses the source as "something forbidden or kept safe", from the root of a verb meaning "he guarded, forbade".^[2][4] Barnhart takes the early English spelling “haram” from Arabic, and the spelling “harem”, recorded from 1718, from Turkish.^[4][8] The OED, revising the entry in 2015, describes it as of multiple origin: partly from a Persian word for women's lodgings or a wife, partly from Ottoman Turkish, which used the word for a holy place, the private part of a large house and the women of the family, and partly from Arabic, where it also meant a sacred precinct and the wives of a household.^[9] The women's quarters were so called because they were forbidden to men from outside the family.^[10][11][12] Klein relates the Arabic root to words in Ethiopic and Hebrew, and to English herem.^[13] The same Arabic verb is the source of harmattan, literally "the forbidden one".^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The separate, private part of a house reserved for the women of the household, especially in the Ottoman Empire: 1634, in Thomas Herbert's A Relation of Some Yeares Trauaile.^[9] Barnhart also dates the word, in the spelling haram, to 1634,^[4][8] Merriam-Webster gives 1623,^[14] and Dictionary.com 1625–35.^[15]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the women's apartments of a house and was then extended to the women who lived in them.^[12][9] The OED records this second sense from 1696, in Ovington's Voyage to Suratt;^[9] Etymonline dates "wives, female relatives and female slaves in a Middle Eastern household" to 1784.^[2] From 1785, in Cowper's The Task, it was used of any group of women closely associated with one man,^[9] a use that Dictionary.com calls humorous but sometimes felt as insulting.^[15] From 1823, in Scott's Peveril of the Peak, a room or place given to luxury or frequented by women could also be called a harem;^[9] zoologists have used it since 1835 used the word for the group of females controlled by one breeding male.^[9][6] In fashion the harem skirt was introduced in 1911 and harem pants are recorded from 1921;^[2] Merriam-Webster also records harem as an attributive word for a style of dress with a full skirt gathered in at the hem.^[14]

Timeline

• 1634 – the women's quarters of a house, in the spelling haram.^[9][4]
• 1696 – the women occupying a harem, especially the wives and concubines of one man.^[9] Etymonline dates this sense to 1784.^[9][2]
• 1718 – the spelling harem.^[4]
• 1785 – a group of women associated with one man.^[9]
• 1823 – a place likened to a harem.^[9]
• 1835 – a group of female animals held by a single male.^[9]
• 1911 – the harem skirt.^[2]
• 1921 – harem pants.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The part of a Muslim house set apart for the women of the family and closed to men from outside it; a seraglio or zenana.^[6][14][9]
2. The women living in such quarters, especially the wives and concubines of one man.^[6][14][9]
3. A group of female animals that mate with, and are guarded by, a single male: The bull seal patrolled the edge of his harem.^[6][14][9]
4. (humorous) A group of women closely attached to one man.^[9][15]

Word family

• harem pants

Related words

• haram
• herem
• harmattan
• ihram
• Muharram

Usage notes

The spellings haram, hareem and harim are also recorded.^[14][6][15] The pronunciation has varied: the first edition of the OED (1898) gave /ˈhɛərəm/, and /hɑːˈriːm/ for the variant harim;^[9] Collins lists both /ˈhɛərəm/ and /hɑːˈriːm/ for British English.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
12. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
14. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House