FRENCH WORDS OF ARABIC ORIGIN

The French word arobase (the @ sign) comes from the Arabic الرُّبْع, al-rub‘, meaning “the quarter”. It was a unit of weight equivalent to about 12 kg. The French word passed through the Castilian term arroba. From the 16th century onwards, the measure was transcribed by the sign made famous by the internet: @.

The word algorithm, though hardly recognisable as such owing to its long linguistic journey, takes its name from the most illustrious Persian mathematician, astronomer and geographer al-Khawârizmî, who died in Baghdad in 850.

Coffee was brought to Europe in the 17th century by Venetian merchants. It is indeed from the Arabic term qahwa that the French word café takes its origin.

The French word jupe (skirt) passed through the Italian giubba, and comes from the word jubba. This word, still in frequent use in Arabic, refers to a man’s tunic.

“The flower”: such is the charming origin of the French word hasard (chance). The story goes that the winning face of a die was, at some period, adorned with a flower, though nowhere do we find at what time or in what place. The word is said to have passed through the Spanish azar. In any case, in Arabic, dice are called zahr al-nard. And in Morocco, luck is precisely called az-zhar, which seems to confirm both the etymology and the passage through Spain.

One of the most serious hypotheses proposes the Arabic word rizq as the origin of the word risk. It refers to the share that God allots to His servants — hence the fortuitous character of one’s lot and, by extension, the idea of risk.

The etymology of this flower is not originally Arabic (every etymology has its antecedents) but Persian — dulbend, meaning “turban”. The term passed through the Turkish word tülbent. It is precisely the resemblance in shape between this ornate headdress and the flower that gave the latter its name.

Among the various etymologies proposed for this term, the Arabic origin seems the most plausible. In Arabic, the word hawl expresses great fright. Sailors are said to have used it to describe extreme sailing conditions, which gave rise to the current French term for the swell of the sea.

Zenith is one of the many words inherited from the Muslim world’s contribution to astronomy. In Arabic, the word samt evokes the path, in the expression samt al-ra’s, which literally means “the direction [above] the head”. The term passed through its medieval Latin equivalent zenit.

In Arabic, the word râha(t) means the palm of the hand. This is where the French raquette is said to come from — as confirmed by the name of the game jeu de paume (“palm game”, the ancestor of tennis).

The word syrup, like the word sorbet, comes from the Arabic sharâb, which simply means a drink. Although this word has travelled, its provenance remains obvious. It became sharbat in Persian, serbet in Turkish and sorbetto in Italian. Venetian merchants brought it to Italy during the Middle Ages. It did not reach France until the 12th century.

The word bougie (candle) does not strictly speaking come from Arabic, but it undoubtedly comes from a city of the Arab world: Bougie, or Bijâya in Arabic and Kabyle. For in the Middle Ages, the candle trade was carried out in that town.

The chess expression comes from the Arabic al-shaykh mât, which meant “the dignitary (or the old man) is dead”. The first term of the expression may also come from the Persian shâh, meaning king. This second hypothesis seems more pertinent; the verb mât, however, clearly comes from Arabic. The two are not incompatible, for the title of shah could be used in Arabic to refer to the kings of Persia, just as we use it today when speaking of the Shah of Iran.

The word elixir, which passed through its Latin equivalent elixir, comes from the Arabic al-iksîr, which referred to the philosopher’s stone.

Dictionaries propose three etymologies for the word massage: massein from Greek; mashesh from Hebrew; and masah from Arabic. The similarity of these roots, at least for Arabic and Hebrew, is hardly surprising, for the two languages are very close — and these are the same roots that gave us the Messiah, mashiah in Hebrew and masîh in Arabic.

The word carafe passed through the Italian caraffa and the Spanish garrafa, and comes from the Arabic gharrâf, meaning a drinking vessel.

To understand the origin of the word assassin, a little history is needed. In the 11th century, in the famous fortress of Alamut, north-west of Tehran, a sect stemming from the Ismailis (a minority Shiite branch) was entrenched. Their equally famous leader, Hasan Ibn Sabâh, was nicknamed “the Old Man of the Mountain”. Though few in number, his followers spread terror by assassinating their political and religious adversaries, among Muslims and Christians alike. Legend has it that the sect leader drugged his disciples with hashish, which earned them the nickname hashshâshîn, “the hashish smokers”. The term then passed through the Italian assassino. It is notably mentioned in Dante’s Divine Comedy.

The word alcove comes from the Arabic al-qubba, through the Spanish alcoba. It originally referred to a dome and, by extension, may refer to a small building topped with a cupola, notably in Morocco.

In the 13th century, this French word was pronounced materas. Through its Italian equivalent materasso, it apparently comes from the Arabic matrah, which means the place where something is thrown. Pronounced mitrah, it refers to an object — hence an object onto which one “throws” oneself. In Eastern culture, bedding is laid out on the floor, hence the term. Nevertheless, it is probably not a word of ancient Arabic, as its use is not attested in the Lisân al-‘arab in particular.

The word calibre also comes from the Arabic qâlib. It originally referred to a mould for casting metals.