Latin words from Arabic
9 Latin words with Arabic in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages.
alchemia
It is borrowed from Arabic الْكِيمِيَاء (al-kīmiyāʔ), from Ancient Greek χυμεία (khumeía). Etymonline calls the Greek word of uncertain origin and mentions an old name for Egypt, “land of black…
alcohol
It is borrowed from Andalusian Arabic كُحُول (kuḥūl), from Arabic كُحْل (kuḥl, “kohl”). The DMLBS and Etymonline give the source with the Arabic article ⟨al-⟩ “the”, which became part of the Latin…
algebra
It is borrowed from Arabic الْجَبْر (al-jabr, “restoration, setting of bones”). Köbler traces the mathematical sense to the Arabic name of the science of “restorings and comparisons”, the title of a…
algorismus
It is borrowed from Arabic الخَوَارِزْمِيّ (al-ḵawārizmiyy), the surname of the 9th-century mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, who taught reckoning with the Indian numerals. Etymonline…
assassinus
It is borrowed from Arabic حَشَّاشِين (ḥaššāšīn), the plural of حَشِيشِيّ (ḥašīšiyy), an Arabic nickname for the Nizari Ismaili sect, made from the word that gave hashish. Etymonline takes the…
cenit
It is borrowed from Arabic سَمْت (samt, “direction, path”), badly transcribed. The Arabic term was the phrase سمت الرأس (samt ar-raʾs, “direction of the head”), of which the Latin word keeps only…
cifra
It is borrowed from Arabic صِفْر (ṣifr, “zero”). Etymonline glosses the Arabic word as literally “empty, nothing” and calls it a loan translation of Sanskrit शून्य (śūnyá, “empty”). The word came to…
mumia
It is borrowed from Arabic مُومِيَاء (mūmiyāʔ, “embalmed body”), from Persian مومیا (mūmiyā, “asphalt”), derived from موم (mūm, “wax”). Etymonline allows that it may have come by way of Greek.
zephirum
It is borrowed from Arabic صِفْر (ṣifr, “nothing; cipher”), a borrowing that Wiktionary calls probable. Etymonline describes the Arabic word as a translation of a word for “empty place, nothing” in…