minaret

Etymology

It is borrowed from French minaret,^{[2][3][4][5][1]} from Ottoman Turkish مناره (minare),^[1][4][6][2] from Arabic مَنَارَة (manāra, “lighthouse, lamp, minaret”).^{[7][4][2][3][1]} The OED takes it from Turkish or from the Arabic word directly, probably in some cases through Italian minare (recorded 1573) or French (1654),^[7] and Hoad and the Shorter Oxford also allow minarete and Italian minaretto;^[8][9] Skeat and Weekley took it from Spanish.^[10][11] The OED derives the Spanish and later Italian forms from French.^[7] The Arabic word is a noun of place from a verb meaning “to shine”,^[7][9] related, according to Barnhart and Etymonline, to a word for candlestick and ultimately to the Arabic word for fire;^[2][3][5] Hoad and Nişanyan connect it with نور (nūr, “light”),^[8][12] and Wiktionary with Proto-Semitic *nūr- (“light”), the root of menorah.^[1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tower attached to a mosque: 1675, in the diary of John Covel.^[7] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster date it to 1682,^[2][4] and Etymonline to the 1680s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Arabic word first named the lighthouse towers of Islamic fortresses on the North African coast, which served as beacons; the OED, citing the Encyclopaedia of Islam, notes that the link with fire was soon lost and that the word was also applied to signposts, boundary stones and watchtowers.^[7] Partridge explains the mosque tower as named from its shape, like a lighthouse.^[13] From 1860, in Tyndall's Glaciers of the Alps, it was used of other things shaped like a minaret.^[7]

Timeline

• 1675 – the tower of a mosque.^[7] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster first record it in 1682.^[2][4]
• 1860 – in extended use, anything shaped like a minaret.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tall slender tower of a mosque, with one or more balconies from which the muezzin calls people to prayer: The minaret rose above the old market.^[5][4][7]
2. A structure that looks like such a tower.^[5][4][7]

Word family

• minareted

Related words

• menorah
• minar

Usage notes

The OED notes that its first edition (1906) gave only a pronunciation stressed on the first syllable, and that stress on the last syllable, probably influenced by words in -ette, is favoured in American dictionaries.^[7]

References

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