stringed musical instrument, late 13c., from Old French lut, leut (Modern French luth), from Old Provençal laut, a misdivision of Arabic al-'ud, the Arabian lute, literally "the wood" (source of Medieval Latin lutana, Spanish laud, Portuguese alaude, Italian liuto), where al is the definite article.
Dutch luit, German Laute, Danish luth are from Romanic. A player is a luter (Middle English), a lutist (1620s) or a lutanist (c. 1600, from Medieval Latin lutanista).
also sheikh, "head of an Arab family," also "head of a Muslim religious order," and later also a general title of respect, 1570s, from Arabic shaykh "chief," literally "old man," from base of shakha "to grow old." Popularized by "The Sheik," the 1919 novel in an Arabian setting by E.M. Hull, and the movie version, "The Sheikh" (1921), starring Rudolph Valentino, which gave the word its colloquial sense of "strong, romantic lover." The word gave French fits: Old French had it as seic, esceque, and later forms included scheik, cheikh.
"man-eating giant of fairy tales and popular legends," 1713, hogre (in a translation of a French version of the Arabian Nights), from French ogre, first used in Perrault's "Contes," 1697, and perhaps formed by him from a dialectal variant of Italian orco "demon, monster," from Latin Orcus "Hades," which is of unknown origin. In English, more literary than colloquial. The conjecture that it is from Byzantine Ogur "Hungarian" or some other version of that people's name (perhaps via confusion with the bloodthirsty Huns), lacks historical evidence. Related: Ogrish; ogreish; ogrishness; ogreishness.
by 1823 in representations of Persian or Oriental phrases, or sometimes in reference to seven seas forming part of the Hindu cosmology or to the Talmudists' supposed seven seas of Israel (some of which are obscure lakes); see seven. It is in Burton's "Arabian Nights" (1886) and probably was popularized by one of the versions of Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyam (from which Kipling got it as a book title). To the extent that the phrase has been applied, awkwardly, to global geography, they would be the Arctic, Antarctic, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, and Indian oceans.
also ensorcel, "to bewitch," 1540s, from French ensorceller, from Old French ensorceler, a dissimilation of ensorcerer from en- (see en- (1)) + verb from sorcier "sorcerer, wizard" (see sorcery). Related: Ensorcelled; ensorceled.
A rare word in English until Richard Burton took it for The Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince, a translation of a title of one of the Arabian Nights tales (1885). The word had been used in an earlier (1838) partial translation, "The Book of The Thousand Nights and One Night," by Henry Torrens, whose book Burton knew and admired. It turns up, once, in George Puttenham's "Arte of English Poesie" (1589), which was reprinted in the early 19th century. Perhaps Torrens saw it there.
colored crystalline gem, late 13c., from Old French topace (11c.), from Latin topazus (source also of Spanish topacio, Italian topazio), from Greek topazos, topazion, of obscure origin. Pliny says it was named for a remote island in the Red or Arabian Sea, where it was mined, the island so named for being hard to find (from Greek topazein "to divine, to try to locate"); but this might be folk etymology, and instead the word might be from the root of Sanskrit tapas "heat, fire." In the Middle Ages used for almost any yellow stone. To the Greeks and Romans, possibly yellow olivine or yellow sapphire. In modern science, fluo-silicate of aluminum. As a color name from 1908.
"large ruminant quadruped used in Asia and Africa as a beast of burden," Old English camel, perhaps via Old North French camel (Old French chamel, Modern French chameau), from Latin camelus, from Greek kamelos, from Hebrew or Phoenician gamal, perhaps related to Arabic jamala "to bear."
Another Old English word for the beast was olfend, apparently based on confusion of camels and elephants in a place and time when both were unknown but for travelers' vague descriptions. The confusion was general in the older Germanic languages (Gothic ulbandus, Old High German olbenta, Old Saxon olbhunt, Old Norse ulfaldi). Also compare camelopard. Of the two distinct species, the Arabian has one hump (the lighter, thoroughbred variety is the dromedary); the Bactrian has two. The camel-walk dance style is recorded from 1919.
early 15c., sisamie, "annual herbaceous plant cultivated primarily for its seeds," probably from Latin sesamum (nominative sesama), from Greek sēsamon (Doric sasamon) "seed or fruit of the sesame plant," a very early borrowing via Phoenician from Late Babylonian *shawash-shammu (compare Assyrian shamash-shammu "sesame," literally "oil-seed"). Medieval Latin had it as sisaminum; Old French as sisamin.
It first appears in English as a magic charm in a 1722 translation of Galland's "Mille et une nuits," where it causes the door of the thieves' den in "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" to fly open. It began to be used in contexts outside the Tales by 1790s.
A warehouse, a shop, or more generally a stable, is under every private dwelling-house. When you ring the bell, the door is opened by a long string from above ; like the "Open Sesame," in the Arabian Tales. [Southey, "Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal," 1799]
Middle English Saracene, Sarcene, Sarazyn, Sarasine, "a Turk; an Arab; a Muslim," from Old English (in translations from Latin), from Old French Saracin, Sarrasine or Medieval Latin Saracenus, from Greek sarakenos. This usually is said to be from Arabic sharquiyin, accusative plural of sharqiy "eastern," from sharq "east, sunrise," but this is not certain. In medieval times the name was associated with that of Biblical Sarah (q.v.).
Peple þat cleped hem self Saracenys, as þogh þey were i-come of Sarra [Ranulph Higden’s "Polychronicon," mid-14c., John Trevisa's translation, 1380s ]
It was the name Greeks and Romans gave to the nomads of the Syrian and Arabian deserts and the inhabitants of Arabia Felix, in the West it took on a sense of "Middle Eastern Muslim" from the Crusades. It also could be applied to any non-Christian people against whom a crusade was preached (the pagan Lithuanians), and in Middle English it was used generally for "one who is not a Christian or Jew; heathen, pagan" (mid-13c.). From c. 1300 as an adjective. Related: Saracenic; Sarcenism ("Islam"), and compare sarsen. Sarsinrie, "the Saracen people or country," is attested in mid-15c.
mythical bird of great beauty worshiped in Egypt, Old English and Old French fenix, from Medieval Latin phenix, from Latin phoenix, from Greek phoinix. The bird was the only one of its kind, ans after living 500 or 600 years in the Arabian wilderness, "built for itself a funeral pile of spices and aromatic gums, lighted the pile with the fanning of its wings, and was burned upon it, but from its ashes revived in the freshness of youth" [Century Dictionary].
Ðone wudu weardaþ wundrum fæger
fugel feþrum se is fenix hatan
["Phoenix," c.900]
Compare Phoenician, which seems to be unrelated. Forms in ph- begin to appear in English late 15c. and the spelling was assimilated to Greek in 16c. (see ph). Figurative sense of "that which rises from the ashes of what was destroyed" is attested from 1590s.
The constellation was one of the 11 added to Ptolemy's list in the 1610s by Flemish cartographer Petrus Plancius (1552-1622) after Europeans began to explore the Southern Hemisphere. The city in Arizona, U.S., was so called because it was founded in 1867 on the site of an ancient Native American settlement.
