Many countries, cultures, and languages have been influenced by Arabic. In Europe, influence first started taking hold in medieval times due to the sharing of ideas, especially in scholarship in mathematics, science and medicine, as well as trade. Another huge driver was the fact that the Iberian Peninsula in Spain was ruled by Muslim kingdoms from the 1st to 15th centuries. Arabic words spread to many European languages, including Spanish, Italian, French and Latin. From there, these languages intermingled even more, loaning Arabic-adapted words amongst each other.
Arabic Loanwords in English
What does “from Arabic” actually mean? A loanword is a term adopted from another language. Speakers of the adopting language may change its pronunciation, spelling or meaning as they weave it into their own vocabularies. Usually, at least a small piece of the original meaning remains.
Languages can borrow loanwords without direct contact with the original language through an intermediary language. For example, al-jabr is the original Arabic term which means “restoring” or “the restoring of broken parts”. The term started being used in mathematics by Persian mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, which was then adopted by Latin translations. From there, European scholarship developed the common pronunciation and understanding: Algebra.
Through medieval translations, Mediterranean commerce and scholarship across Arabic, Latin and Greek ideas, different groups of words entered European languages.
English Words Derived from Arabic
Many common words in English come from Arabic, or have Arabic as a main intermediary language. Here’s a quick overview of some of the most common words with Arabic roots in English.
| English word | Arabic word | Transliteration | Original or relevant meaning | Simplified route into English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alchemy | الكيمياء | al-kīmiyāʾ | Alchemy | Greek → Arabic → Latin → French → English |
| Alcohol | الكحل | al-kuḥl | Powdered eye cosmetic | Arabic → Latin → English |
| Alcove | القبة | al-qubba | Dome; vaulted chamber | Arabic → Spanish → French → English |
| Alembic | الإنبيق | al-anbīq | Distilling apparatus | Greek → Arabic → Latin → French → English |
| Algebra | الجبر | al-jabr | Restoration | Arabic → Latin → English |
| Alkali | القلي | al-qalī | Alkaline plant ashes | Arabic → Latin → English |
| Amber | عنبر | anbar | Refers to ambergris, the waxy substance secreted by sperm whales and used in perfume | Arabic → Latin → French → English |
| Arsenal | دار الصناعة | dār al-ṣināʿa | House of manufacture | Arabic → Italian → French → English |
| Artichoke | الخرشوف | al-kharshūf | Artichoke | Arabic → Spanish/Italian → English |
| Azimuth | السموت | al-sumūt | The directions | Arabic → Latin → French → English |
| Candy | قند | qand | Cane sugar | Persian → Arabic → French → English |
| Carob | خروب | kharrūb | Carob | Arabic → Latin → French → English |
| Cipher | صفر | ṣifr | Empty; zero | Arabic → Latin → French → English |
| Coffee | قهوة | qahwa | Coffee; earlier also wine | Arabic → Turkish → European languages → English |
| Cotton | قطن | quṭn | Cotton | Arabic → French → English |
| Gazelle | غزال | ghazāl | Gazelle | Arabic → French → English |
| Ghoul | غول | ghūl | Monstrous supernatural being | Arabic → French → English |
| Giraffe | زرافة | zarāfa | Giraffe | Arabic → Italian → French → English |
| Henna | حناء | ḥinnāʾ | Henna plant or dye | Arabic → English |
| Hummus | حمص | ḥummuṣ | Chickpeas | Arabic → Turkish → English |
| Jar | جرة | jarra | Earthenware vessel | Arabic → French → English |
| Jasmine | ياسمين | yāsamīn | Jasmine | Persian → Arabic → French → English |
| Julep | جلاب | julāb | Rosewater; sweet drink | Persian → Arabic → Latin → French → English |
| Lemon | ليمون | laymūn | Lemon | Persian → Arabic → French → English |
| Lime | ليم | līm | Lime; citrus fruit | Persian → Arabic → Spanish → English |
| Lute | العود | al-ʿūd | The oud; stringed instrument | Arabic → Romance languages → English |
| Magazine | مخازن | makhāzin | Storehouses | Arabic → Italian → French → English |
| Mattress | مطرح | maṭraḥ | Cushion; something thrown down | Arabic → Italian → French → English |
| Monsoon | موسم | mawsim | Season | Arabic → Portuguese → Dutch → English |
| Mummy | مومياء | mūmiyāʾ | Bitumen; embalming substance | Persian → Arabic → Latin → French → English |
| Nadir | نظير | naẓīr | Counterpart; opposite | Arabic → Latin → English |
| Orange | نارنج | nāranj | Bitter orange | Sanskrit → Persian → Arabic → French → English |
| Ream | رزمة | rizma | Bundle | Arabic → Spanish → French → English |
| Safari | سفر | safar | Journey | Arabic → Swahili → English |
| Saffron | زعفران | zaʿfarān | Saffron | Arabic → Latin → French → English |
| Sequin | سكة | sikka | Minting die; coinage | Arabic → Italian → French → English |
| Sofa | صفة | ṣuffa | Raised platform | Arabic → Turkish → French → English |
| Spinach | إسفاناخ | isfānākh | Spinach | Persian → Arabic → Spanish → French → English |
| Sugar | سكر | sukkar | Sugar | Sanskrit → Persian → Arabic → French → English |
| Syrup | شراب | sharāb | Drink; medicinal syrup | Arabic → Latin → French → English |
| Tahini | طحينة | ṭaḥīna | Ground sesame paste | Levantine Arabic → English |
| Tamarind | تمر هندي | tamr hindī | Indian date | Arabic → Latin → English |
| Tariff | تعريف | taʿrīf | Notification; specification | Arabic → Italian → English |
| Zenith | سمت الرأس | samt al-raʾs | Direction overhead | Arabic → Latin → French → English |
| Zero | صفر | ṣifr | Empty; zero | Arabic → Latin → Italian → French → English |
Arabic Words in Maths and Science
Much of the scientific vocabulary used in Middle and medieval English came from Arabic, and still lives on in our dictionary today. Translators carried Arabic terms and concepts into Latin, which allowed the names and meanings to circulate amongst various European scholars.
Algebra
Arabic al-jabr described restoration. In the 9th century, Persian mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi published Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-jabr wal-muqābalah (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing). Through Latin translations, it became the English name for a branch of mathematics.
Arabic dates back to at least the 4th century CE and is deeply rooted in the Arabian Peninsula. Over centuries, it has spread widely due to Islamic expansion and is still spoken by over 400 million people today, making it one of the oldest continually spoken languages in the world.
Alchemy
The Arabic term origin means "The art of transformation and change," with 'al' being a definite article in the Arabic language and 'kimiyā' being the noun for chemistry. Many scholars believe that this word passed from Hellenistic Greek into Arabic, merging χημεία / khemeía (the art of melting metals, transmutation), χυμεία / chymeía (pouring, melting) and chymos (juice/fluid).
Alcohol
The word al-kuhl originally referred to a type of distilled cosmetic powder but later evolved to refer to any distilled substance. The term eventually referred specifically to distilled spirits, retaining the Arabic roots in the English word.
Like many Arabic loanwords, the "al", meaning "the", has been retained in English. However, since words and their usage aren't planned, English speakers retained the redundant "al" even when using the definite article in English "the". These kinds of evolutions and usages are why you have to be really careful when getting tattoos in Arabic.
Alkali
Al-qalī referred to alkaline material obtained from plant ashes. The word entered English through Latin scientific vocabulary.
Alembic
An alembic is distilling apparatus. The word is less common today, but it’s a very important instrument in chemistry. Its name passed through Arabic al-anbīq, ultimately from Greek, into Latin and European languages. It refers to a cup or flask.
Cipher
Ṣifr meant zero, empty or nothing. Through Latin and French, cipher acquired further English meanings referring to numerals, codes and secret writing.
Zero
Zero also descends from ṣifr. Latin zephirum developed into Italian zero, which reached English through French.
Zenith
Zenith traces to samt al-raʾs, which refers to the direction immediately overhead. Latin astronomical translations carried the expression into European usage.
Nadir
Arabic naẓīr meant counterpart or opposite. Through Latin astronomy, nadir became the point directly below an observer, the opposite of a zenith.
Azimuth
The original Arabic meaning was “the directions”. Latin astronomical writing adopted the term when referring to the distance of a star from the north or south point of the meridian.
Arabic has a variety of dialects that can differ greatly from one region to another. While Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is used in formal settings like news, literature, and politics, regional dialects are so distinct that speakers from different regions may not understand each other.
Arabic Words for Food and Drink
Before different foods were easily available and widely known in different regions, traders relied on suppliers to tell them the names of these new, exotic items. Since food trade was (and still is) one of the most valued types of commerce, the names of ingredients and foods quickly spread to new places. Some names retained a recognisable connection to their origins, while others were changed by the languages that adopted them.
Coffee
Arabic qahwa became Turkish kahve. Originally in Arabic it was a concept associated with wine. It’s suggested that, since the region of Ethiopia where coffee was normally found was called Kaffa, that the word came to mean specifically the coffee we know today, as well as café.
Sugar
The Arabic word sukkah was from the Sanskrit sharkara. When Arabs introduced sugarcane to Europe, the word stuck.
Indian civilisations were some of the first to cultivate sugarcane, including extracting crystals from its juice, but the word in European languages like Italian (zucchero), Spanish (azúcar), and French (sucre) came from Arabic.
Syrup
Another sweet term from Arabic. However, sharab refers to a “drink” or “beverage” in Arabic. As fruit and sugar mixtures gained popularity, the term evolved to refer to how we understand as syrup today.
Saffron
Zaʿfarān was the name of the rare, valuable spice. Medieval Latin safranum and Old French safran connect it to the English word.
Lemon
Arabic laymūn originated from Persian limun. It’s the name given to the citrus fruit, which stuck during trade. European borrowing eventually produced the familiar English spelling.
Lime
Also connected to Persian limun, the word differed from laymun when referring specifically to the Persian lime. It’s also theorised that the word has to do with the Sanskrit word nimbu.
Orange
Arabic nāranj referred to bitter orange or orange trees. The word became narancia, then arancia, in old Italian, before passing to French and Medieval Latin (then English) as orange. It later became known as the name of a colour in the 1510s due to its association with the bright citrus fruit.
Due to historical trade, conquest, and cultural exchange, Arabic words have made their way into languages like Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Persian, and even English.
Artichoke
Though these plants were already known to the Romans and Greeks as cardoon, it’s believed a better variety was bred in North Africa and brought to Italy in the 15th century, along with the new name al-hursufa. Italian, Spanish, and English shifted the pronunciation in their respective languages. It’s another word that retains the “al” article.
Candy
This word comes from the Arabic qand (in Farsi), which refers to crystallised sugar distilled from sugar cane. Sugar arrived in Europe thanks to the Arabs, who had already developed it in a crystallised form and used it as a sweetener. However, there are previous registers of its use as a sweetener in India and other South Asian places.
Tamarind
Tamr hindī means “Indian date”. The Arabic name entered Latin medical vocabulary before appearing in English translations.
Carob
The name comes from Arabic kharrub, which refers to the carob tree. The word may have also come from Assyrian or Aramaic. It then passed to French as carobe before becoming widely used in other languages.
Julep
Arabic gulāb came from Persian “rosewater”. In Medieval Latin and Old French, it originally invoked a syrupy, medicinal drink. English initially used julep in 1761 for a sweet alcoholic drink with mint that was thought to be medicinal.
Hummus
Arabic ḥummuṣ means chickpeas. The English borrowing came through Turkish and became the name of the prepared chickpea-and-tahini dish.
Tahini
The word tahina or tahana means “to grind or crush”. English borrowed the sesame-paste name directly from Levantine Arabic, reflecting its regional pronunciation.
Arabic Words in Everyday English
Many household objects, musical instruments and commercial terms in English stem from Arabic roots. The concepts for many passed from Arabic countries, which were a central hub of commerce, philosophy, art, science and civilisation for centuries.
Arsenal
Dār al-ṣināʿa meant “house of manufacture”. The Italian maritime adaptation arzenale connected the expression with shipyards in the 16th century before French and English adopted it.
Jar
The word originates from the Persian and Arabic jarra, which meant an earthen vessel for water. It was adopted especially by Provençal, Italian, and Spanish or Catalan, before passing to Medieval Latin. In English, it originally referred specifically to a vessel for transporting olive oil.
Tariff
Taʿrīf meant notification or specification. Through Italian commercial usage, it developed associations with price schedules and customs duties.
The original term ta’rif in Arabic referred to “information, inventory of fees to be paid”. It stems from arafa, which means “he made known”. The word spread around the Mediterranean through trade and commerce, passing into Medieval Latin, meaning “list of prices, book of rates” as well as Italian for “price”.
Sofa
Arabic ṣuffa meant a raised platform with carpets and cushions. This was a common feature of many Eastern households, and still is in some places today. You might see this design in modern-day Arabic cities. Through Turkish and French, the word developed its modern furniture meaning as a long, separate bench.
Magazine
Maghazan in Arabic means “storehouse”. This original meaning can be seen today in the French word magasin, which is a store where you can shop. The Arabic term also spread to Spanish and Italian, also meaning a type of shop.
In military use, the term referred to a case of cartridges in the sense that the case was a storehouse. Then, printed military supply lists became known as "storehouses" of information, and the pamphlets later became known as magazines.
Mattress
In medieval Arabic, al-matrah was a large cushion people would lay on. The word spread to Medieval Latin, Italian, Spanish, French and other languages. In Old French, the word became materas, with a silent ‘s’, but was translated with a sounded ‘s’ into English.
Cotton
Cotton was one of the most valuable goods during Medieval times and was called qutn in Arabic. The term spread across European languages, particularly as the textile trade boomed, before becoming the English word cotton.
Lute
In Arabic, the instrument is called al-’ud, which means “the wood”. You can even see the word “oud” used, especially for woody scents in candles and perfumes, which also stems from this meaning.
Al-’ud was mis-divided into ‘a lud’, which gave rise to the convention of the word beginning with an ‘L’ rather than an ‘oo’ or ‘uh’ sound. Variants of “lute” spread to Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, German, Danish, French and English.
Ream
People from North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula brought the word rizmah, meaning “a bundle (of paper)” around Europe when they began trading cotton paper to Spain. The word was modified by the European languages that picked it up. It entered English use through Old French, which had muffled the ‘z’ sound in the middle of the word, leading to the single-syllable pronunciation.
Sequin
In the 13th century, Old Italian adopted the word zecchino to mean “an official gold minted coin,” from the Arabic word sikka which was “a minting die”. Old French changed the word to sequin, and over time the concept referred to small, shiny discs that shine like gold.
Alcove
Al-qubba meant dome or vaulted chamber, common in much of Arabian architecture. Spanish alcoba and French alcôve preceded the English word for a recessed space. Now, the word has a different connotation, referring to a “small space in a room, formed by one part of a wall being further back than the parts on each side” according to the Cambridge Dictionary.
Spinach
The Persian word aspanakh inspired the Arabic word isbanakh. It then spread to Catalan, Old Provençal and Old French, then Anglo-French. It’s also theorised that a similar word, spinagium, may have developed in Medieval Latin, though that word relates to a prickly fruit.
Arabic words for nature, travel and stories
Cultural exchange contributes to many words from all languages spreading across the world. Through scientific descriptions, storytelling and literature, words for new animals, plants and folk traditions intermingled through cultures.
Jasmine
In Arabic, the flower is called yasmin. The popular name has remained relatively unchanged in the English language. It was originally cultivated in Persia for thousands of years, and the Arabic term came from the Persian term yasamin.
Giraffe
The Arabic term zarafa is likely an adopted word from an African language. It was from the Arabs that the Italians adopted the term as giraffa. Keep in mind at this time, it was a descriptor for an animal almost no Europeans had ever seen, making it hard for them to imagine. It went through several proposed spellings in English, including jarraf and ziraph.
Amber
Arabic ‘anbar refers to the solid, waxy substance found in sperm whale guts and which was commonly used in perfumes and cookery. French adopted the word and created the terms amber gris (grey amber) and amber jaune (yellow amber) to distinguish between the whale-derived substance and the tree-derived substance, respectively.
Gazelle
With a very similar sound in pronunciation from its root to modern English, ghazāl comes from African Arabic and refers to most any kind of deer. The term likely migrated through Spanish, then French, which explains the French spelling today.
Ghoul
A ghul in Arabic tradition is an evil spirit that feeds on corpses. Its name comes from ghala which means “he seized”. The term was introduced to Europeans in the French novel “Vathek” by William Beckford in 1786.
Monsoon
Portuguese sailors picked up the Arabic term mawsim, which actually referred to things that occur annually or a specific time of year. The sailors meant it as the time of year with favourable winds for voyaging to the East Indies. However, during that time of year, India experiences heavy rains, so the word came to be associated with heavy, seasonal rains.
Safari
The word safar in Arabic means journey. It actually journeyed into Swahili where it became “safari”. From there, it made its way into English.
Henna
The henna plant originates from North Africa, the Middle East and parts of South Asia. The Persian/Arabic word hinna, describing the plant and its dye, was brought to Europe in around 1600 in a publication by geographer Johannes Leo Africanus.
Mummy
The original meaning of Mūmiya in Arabic is “embalmed corpse or body”. Its usage in the English language arrived in the 15th and 16th centuries thanks to the French “momie”, initially referring to the embalming substance and later to the preserved corpse itself.
Its roots find influence in the Persian word “mūmiyah,” which means asphalt and also comes from “mūm” (wax); it was believed in ancient Egypt that mummies were embalmed with a medicinal substance: asphalt.
As you can see, Arabic actually has a strong presence in modern English, as well as other languages!
References
- “English Dictionary, Translations and Thesaurus.” Cambridge Dictionary, dictionary.cambridge.org. Accessed 15 Oct. 2026.
- Online Etymology Dictionary. www.etymonline.com. Accessed 15 Oct. 2026.
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Would like to be in touch with you, coze I’m very much interested in this article.
Hi Hamid, You can get in touch with any questions by emailing me at emma@superprof.com. Thanks!
Thank you
how about Earth, Owl ? Why don’t you include here?
Thanks for your question! While “Earth” and “Owl” are interesting words, they actually don’t have Arabic origins. “Earth” comes from Old English eorþe, with Germanic roots, while “Owl” derives from Old English ūle, also Germanic in origin.
This article focuses specifically on English words that came from Arabic through historical trade, scientific exchange, and cultural contact during the Islamic Golden Age. If you’ve come across a source suggesting these words have Arabic connections, we’d love to hear more! 📚
So where does that leave Alabama? :o)