sorbet

Etymology

It is borrowed from French sorbet,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Italian sorbetto,^[2][3][7][8] from Turkish şerbet,^[3][7][6][5] from Persian شربت (šarbat),^[9][1] from Arabic شربة (šarba, “a drink”),^[3][10][11] from شرب (šariba, “to drink”).^[11][10][8] Italian adopted the form with o, according to Ayto,^[8] and the OED and Klein think it was influenced by sorbire (“to sip, imbibe”).^[2][9] Sherbet is the same word, taken directly from Turkish.^[8][12] The French word is also the source of Spanish sorbete and Portuguese sorvete.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A cooling drink of fruit juice, sugar and water, the same thing as sherbet: 1585, in T. Washington's translation of Nicolay's Nauigations.^[2][3][12]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the sweet drink of the Middle East.^[2][4] That use passed to the form sherbet, and in the 19th century English took sorbet afresh from French for a frozen dessert,^[12] recorded from 1864 in the Daily Telegraph.^[2][3][7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged now marks the drink sense archaic.^[7] The frozen dish is sorbet in Britain and sherbet in the United States and Canada.^[13]

Timeline

• 1585 – a cooling drink of fruit juice and sugar.^[2][3]
• 1864 – a sweetmeat or water ice.^[2][3][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A frozen dessert of fruit juice or purée, sugar and water; a water ice: The waiter brought a lemon sorbet between courses.^[6][13][4]
2. (archaic) A sweet, cooling drink; sherbet.^[7][2][4]

Related words

• sherbet
• syrup
• shrub

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Nişanyan, Sevan, Nişanyan Sözlük: Çağdaş Türkçenin Etimolojisi (online edition)
11. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins