zero:
The word ‘zero’ comes from the Arabic sifr, meaning ‘empty’ or ‘nothing’. Fibonacci, a thirteenth-century Italian mathematician introduced the concept of ‘zero’ to Europe when he returned from studying in North Africa.
Safari:
The Swahili speakers of East Africa gave English this word, which means ‘an expedition’ and comes from the Arabic word for ‘journey’ (safar).
Sofa:
The word ‘sofa’ came to English from Turkish, where it refers to a raised section of a floor covered with carpets and cushions. The Turks got the word from the Arabic suffah, which means ‘a ledge or bench made of stone or wood’. In America and Australia, however, a ‘sofa’ is usually called a ‘couch’.
Coffee:
Arab traders brought coffee to Arabia from East Africa and called it kahwah. They shared it with their neighbours, the Ottoman Empire, who called it kahveh, and from there the Turks shared it with the world.
Sugar
As was the case with coffee, Arab traders were important in the spread of sugar in Europe. English gets the word via the French sucre and the Latin succarum, which comes from the Arabic sukkar.
Cotton
Early Arab traders introduced Indian cotton to Europe along with the Arabic word qutn, which is where the English term comes from.
Algebra
The word ‘algebra’ comes from al-jabr, meaning ‘a reunion of broken parts’, which referred to the setting of broken bones until a ninth-century Arabic book changed the meaning of the term. The author of the book was al-Khwarizmi, whose name gives us another mathematical term: ‘algorithm’.
7 English words that come from Arabic
Alcohol
According to the Oxford English dictionary, the word Alcohol originates from the Arabic world al-kuḥl ‘the kohl’, which in early use referred to powders, specifically kohl, and especially those obtained by sublimation; later ‘a distilled or rectified spirit’ in the mid 17th century.
Magazine
The word magazine originally meant warehouse or place for storing goods in the 1580s, which originated from the Arabic makhazin, plural of makhzan “storehouse”, from khazana “to store up.” According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the original sense of the word is now almost obsolete.
Saffron
The spice saffron earned its name from the Arabic az-za’faran, which is of unknown origin. The Online Etymology Dictionary adds that the Russian shafran’ is also from Arabic.
10 English Words You Didn’t Know Came From Arabic
Algorithm
Every time you use an algorithm, you should remember that the name was used to name it over the person who invented the steps to solve the mathematical problems Mohammad Al-Khwarizmi. Hence the Arabic term (خوارزمية) is given in Arabic after him before it was transferred to English among other languages.
Orange
People who speak Arabic know that Orange translates to Burtuqal. Yet, we can say that Orange is derived from Arabic! A few centuries ago, we did not have Oranges in the Mediterranean basin. Arabic merchants brought oranges with them from India. These Oranges were bitter not like the ones we have today and they were called Naranj (نارنج) in Arabic. Today Oranges are still called Naranj in Spain, but in English and French, they use the name Orange.