__NOTOC__ The following English words have been acquired either directly from Arabic or else indirectly by passing from Arabic into other languages and then into English. Most entered one or more of the Romance languages before entering English.
To qualify for this list, a word must be reported in etymology dictionaries as having descended from Arabic. A handful of dictionaries has been used as the source for the list.The dictionaries used to compile the list are these: Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales: Etymologies, Online Etymology Dictionary, Random House Dictionary, Concise Oxford English Dictionary, American Heritage Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Arabismen im Deutschen: lexikalische Transferenzen vom Arabischen ins Deutsche, by Raja Tazi (year 1998), A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (a.k.a. "NED") (published in pieces between 1888 and 1928), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English (year 1921) by Ernest Weekley. Footnotes for individual words have supplementary other references. The most frequently cited of the supplementary references is Glossaire des mots espagnols et portugais dérivés de l'arabe (year 1869) by Reinhart Dozy. Words associated with the Islamic religion are omitted; for Islamic words, see Glossary of Islam. Archaic and rare words are also omitted. A bigger listing including many words very rarely seen in English is available at Wiktionary dictionary.
Loanwords listed in alphabetical order List of English words of Arabic origin (A-B) List of English words of Arabic origin (C-F) List of English words of Arabic origin (G-J) List of English words of Arabic origin (K-M) List of English words of Arabic origin (N-S) List of English words of Arabic origin (T-Z) List of English words of Arabic origin: Addenda for certain specialist vocabularies
G garble غربل gharbal (), to sift. Common in Arabic before year 1000.A number of large dictionaries were written in Arabic during medieval times. Searchable copies of nearly all of the main medieval Arabic dictionaries are online at Baheth.info and/or AlWaraq.net. One of the most esteemed of the dictionaries is Ismail ibn Hammad al-Jawhari's "Al-Sihah" which is dated around and shortly after year 1000. The biggest is Ibn Manzur's "Lisan Al-Arab" which is dated 1290 but most of its contents were taken from a variety of earlier sources, including 9th- and 10th-century sources. Often Ibn Manzur names his source then quotes from it. Therefore, if the reader recognizes the name of Ibn Manzur's source, a date considerably earlier than 1290 can often be assigned to what is said. A list giving the year of death of a number of individuals who Ibn Manzur quotes from is in Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon, volume 1, page xxx (year 1863). Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon contains much of the main contents of the medieval Arabic dictionaries in English translation. At AlWaraq.net, in addition to searchable copies of medieval Arabic dictionaries, there are searchable copies of a large number of medieval Arabic texts on various subjects. Early records in European languages are at seaports in Italy and Catalonia. They include Latin garbellare = "to sift" in year 1191 sifting drugs and resins, Latin = "a sieve for sifting spices" in 1227, Latin garbellare sifting dyestuffs in 1269, Italian gherbellare = "to sift spices and drugs" in 1321.Regarding Italian-Latin garbellare meaning "to sift spices, drugs, dyes and resins", a set of examples at the port of Genoa in and around the 13th century is in the downloadable book Vocabolario Ligure, by Sergio Aprosio, year 2001 on page 419, including wordforms garbellatura, garbellus, etc. An example at the port of Marseille in Latin in the mid 13th century is at Du Cange. Examples at the port of Pisa in Italian in the early 14th century are at garbel @ Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini, including wordforms gherbellare (verb) and ghierbello (noun). Examples at the port of Valencia in Catalan in the early 14th century are at Ref, Ref, Ref, where the sifted materials were spices and dyes and the wordforms included garbellar | guarbellar | garbellada. In Italian with date around 1340 the word occurs more than two hundred times in a merchant's handbook, Francesco Pegolotti's La Pratica della Mercatura, where it comes up in the context of quality-control of spices, drugs, dyes, and resins, and is spelled both garbell__ and gherbell__. In Spanish there is a not-common garbillo = "sieve". It entered Spanish from the Catalan garbell. Its uncommonness in Spanish is shown by the CORDE Spanish text database, which does not have it in medieval Spanish, and rarely has it in post-medieval Spanish. One of the uncommon instances in Spanish in the CORDE database is in year 1509 in a translation to Spanish of a medicine book written in Italy in Latin by Theodoric of Lucca (died c. 1298), spelled in Spanish garbelladura. In German in 1420 there is gerbelieren = "to cleanse wares from impurities", clearly from the Italian gherbellare – Raja Tazi 1998. French grabeler = "to sift spices or drugs" (1439) is understood to be from the Italian and Catalan and ultimately from the Arabic gharbal – grabeler @ CNRTL.fr. From the medieval use contexts and the locations where the early Latinate records are found, the inference is made that the Arabic word entered Italian merchant vocabulary from the Mediterranean-wide sea-commerce in spices, drugs, colorants, and resins. For background information on such commerce by Italians in Arabic-speaking cities, Pegolotti is good. In addition to the Italian Maritime Republics, the Catalans based at Barcelona and Valencia were active in the Mediterranean-wide sea-commerce in the same way as the Italians – Ref (spices on page 40). They begot English garbele = "to sift spices" starting 1393. In later-medieval Europe, pepper and ginger and other spice trade items were always imports from the Arabic-speaking Eastern Mediterranean, and the same goes for many botanical drugs (herbal medicines) and a few expensive colorants. The spices, drugs and colorants contained variable amounts of natural chaff residuals and occasionally contained unnatural added chaff. In England among the merchants of these products in late medieval and early post-medieval centuries, garble was a frequent word.In England around year 1400, either in English or in Anglo-Norman French, all of the following words referred to sifting removal of stalks and impurities from spices: garbel, garbelage, garbelen, garbelinge, garbalour, garbelure, garbellable, ungarbled – Middle English Dictionary. For example in an Act of Parliament in 1439 applying to English ports where spices were offered for sale, any spices not "trewly and duely garbelyd and clensyd" were subject to "forfaiture of the said Spiceries so yfound ungarbelyd and unclensyd". Garbled meant that the parts of the spice plant that were not part of the spice were removed. Garble was also used as a noun for the refuse removed by garbling; e.g. in an Act of Parliament in 1603-04: "If any of the said Spices... shall be mixed with any Garbles..." – ref: NED. The verb Garble has records in England starting from 1393 documented in the Middle English Dictionary at ref and ref. A Garbler or Garbelour, also 1393, was an official in the City of London who could enter a shop or warehouse to view spices and drugs, and garble them, to check them for compliance with rules against having cheaper stuff mixed in with them. Meanwhile, the early meaning of the English "garbage" (first known record 1422, in London) was the low-grade yet consumable parts of poultry such as the birds' heads, necks and gizzards – ref: MED. Over the next two centuries "garbage" gradually came to mean the refuse parts of butchered animals – ref: Lexicons of Early Modern English. In the early 18th century Nathan Bailey's English Dictionary defined garbage as "the entrails, etc., of cattle", and defined garble as "to cleanse from dross and dirt", and defined garbles as "the dust, soil or filth separated by garbling" – ref. Nathan Bailey says the parent of garbage is garble (together with the suffix -age). Most dictionaries today disagree with Bailey. They say instead the parent of garbage is unknown. The influential New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (year 1901) says the word garbage is "of obscure origin". To that dictionary's knowledge, however, the earliest record for garbage is 1430 and the earliest for garble is 1483 (ref: NED), which, if it were true, would imply that "garbage" existed in English prior to the arrival of garble. The fact that garble has records from 1393 makes it easier to believe that garbage probably or possibly came from garble. Sifting and culling was word's usual meaning in English until the 19th century and today's meaning grew out from it.English verb "garble" in New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (year 1901).