scarab

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French scarabée,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Latin scarabaeus (“a kind of beetle”).^[2][5][6][7] The Shorter Oxford and Collins take the English word straight from the Latin one, as a shortening.^[8][9] The Latin word also gave Spanish escarabajo and Italian scarabeo.^[5] Etymonline, Barnhart and Klein derive it from Ancient Greek κάραβος (kárabos, “horned beetle; crayfish”),^[6][2][7] while the OED, Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Collins only compare the Greek word as probably related.^[5][4][9] Klein holds that the Greek word is foreign, probably Macedonian, because its ending is not Greek,^[7][6] and Barnhart also suggests a Macedonian source.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged connects the Greek word with caravel.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A beetle of any kind, mostly thought of as bred in and feeding on dung: 1579, in Stephen Gosson's Schoole of Abuse.^[5][2][4] Etymonline dates it to the 1570s,^[6] and Dictionary.com to 1570–80.^[10]

Semantic evolution

From 1602, in Ben Jonson's Poetaster, until 1677 the word was also a term of abuse for a man,^[5][8] and Jonson used it so again in The Alchemist.^[11] Johnson (1755) defined a scarab simply as a beetle, an insect with sheathed wings.^[12] The word later narrowed to the scarabaeid beetles, especially the sacred scarab revered by the ancient Egyptians,^[5][8][4] and in the 19th century it was applied to the Egyptian gems and amulets cut in the shape of the beetle, engraved on the flat underside;^[13][8] the OED's first quotation for this sense is from 1878.^[5] Weekley noted in 1921 that, except of these gems, the word was obsolete.^[14]

Timeline

• 1579 – a beetle of any kind, especially a dung beetle.^[5][2][4]
• 1602 – a term of abuse for a man (obsolete by 1677).^[5]
• 1878 – a gem cut in the shape of a beetle, with a design on its flat side.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of a family of large, often dung-eating beetles, especially the sacred scarab regarded as divine by the ancient Egyptians; also called scarab beetle.^[4][9][5]
2. A representation of this beetle in stone or faience, with an inscription on its flat underside, used in ancient Egypt as a talisman, ornament or seal: The museum's scarab bears the name of a pharaoh.^[4][9]
3. An ancient gem cut in the form of a beetle, with a design in intaglio on its flat side.^[5][8]
4. (obsolete, 1602–1677) A term of abuse for a man.^[5][8]

Word family

• scaraboid
• scarabaeid
• scarabaeoid

Related words

• scarabaeus
• caravel

References

1. ^ 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. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W.; Mayhew, A. L. (1914), A Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray