Etymologically
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mosque

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /mɒsk/ (UK); /mɑsk/ (US)[1]

Etymology

It is an alteration of earlier muskee, moskee, borrowed from Middle French mosquée,[2][3][4] from Italian moschea, an alteration of moscheta,[2][3] from Old Spanish mezquita,[4][2] from Arabic مَسْجِد (masjid, “temple, place of worship”) (Egyptian Arabic مسجد (masgid)),[3][5][6] from سَجَدَ (sajada, “he worshipped”) with the prefix مَ- (ma-) marking a place.[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Muslim place of worship: about 1400 in the OED and Etymonline, in the mangled form moseak;[7][3] Barnhart dates moseak and moseache probably before 1425, and Hoad has musketh in the 14th century.[2][6]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English forms are of obscure development.[6][2] Mosquee appears in the 16th century,[3][6] and the present form mosque, a shortening of it, in the 17th, recorded in 1717 in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters.[6][2] The mosque, Muslims collectively, is from 1779.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 1400 – moseak.[7][3]
  • 16th century – mosquee.[3]
  • 1717 – mosque.[2][3]
  • 1779 – the mosque, Muslims as a body.[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A building for Muslim worship, usually with one or more minarets.
  • masjid
  • minaret
  • muezzin

Usage notes

Word Origins cites it as an example of how western European languages mangled Arabic words.[8] Also used in English is the Arabic word itself, masjid.[9]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins