masjid

Etymology

It is partly from the same word in Urdu and Persian and partly borrowed from Arabic مَسْجِد (masjid, “place of worship, place of prostration in prayer”),^[2][1][3][4] a noun of place, formed with a prefix denoting place from a verb meaning to bow down in prayer or worship.^[2][5] The Arabic word is probably ultimately of Aramaic origin;^[2][6] the American Heritage Dictionary traces it to a reconstructed Aramaic *masgid (“place of worship”), from a verb meaning to bow down or worship,^[7] and Klein allows either a borrowing from Nabataean or a formation within Arabic.^[8] The same Arabic word, through Spanish mezquita, Italian moschea and French mosquée, gave English mosque.^[5][8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A mosque, especially one in a Muslim country: 1594, in R. Ashley's translation of Louis Le Roy, rendering the French plural Mesgedes.^[2] The 1989 edition of the OED dated the word only from 1845,^[9] and the Shorter Oxford dates it to the mid 19th century.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Unlike its doublet mosque, which came through the Romance languages, masjid was taken over directly, largely through contact with Urdu, Persian and Arabic speakers, and has kept the one meaning.^[2][1] The OED notes that the fuller Arabic name for a large congregational mosque, where the Friday prayer is held, means "universal mosque", and that its second word became the usual word for a mosque in Turkey and the Balkans.^[2]

Timeline

• 1594 – a mosque, translating a French plural.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mosque, especially one in a Muslim country.^[2][3][4]

Related words

• mosque

Usage notes

Collins and Dictionary.com also record the spelling musjid.^[4][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House