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. 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
N
nadir نَظِير naẓīr (), a point on a celestial sphere diametrically opposite some other point; or a direction to outer space diametrically opposite some other direction. That sense for the wq=nadahir&pg=PA22 ref]. The 10th century text by Al-Battani is in Arabic at AlChamel14.org (also at Archive.org and Al-Hakawati.net), and its 12th century translation by Plato Tiburtinus is at Books.Google.com. The earliest reported secure record for the wordform nadir in the West is dated circa 1233 in the short and influential astronomy textbook De Sphaera Mundi by Johannes de Sacrobosco. Sacrobosco's book was influenced by Arabic astronomy; e.g. it quotes by name the Arabic astronomer Al-Farghani (aka Alfraganus) five times. In the context of talking about how planet Earth blocks sunlight from reaching the Moon during a lunar eclipse, Sacrobosco says in Latin: "The nadir is a point in outer space directly opposite to the sun." That statement by Sacrobosco uses nadir in the sense the Arabic naẓīr was used, which in Arabic had a core meaning of "counterpart". Sacrobosco's De Sphaera is online in Latin and in English translation. Nadir in this original sense was used by Roger Bacon (died 1294) (ref) and Nicholas Oresme (died 1382) (ref), among others.</ref> Crossref zenith, which was transferred from Arabic astronomy to Latin astronomy on the same pathway at the same time.
natron, natrium, kalium The ancient Greeks had the word nitron with the meaning of naturally occurring sodium carbonate and similar salts. The medieval Arabs had this spelled نطرون natrūn () with the same meaning. Today's European word natron, meaning hydrated sodium carbonate, is descended from the Arabic. In Europe shortly after sodium was isolated as an element for the first time, in the early 19th century, sodium was given the scientific abbreviation Na from a newly created Latin name, initially then natrium, which goes back etymologically to the medieval and early modern Arabic natrūn. Also in the early 19th century, elemental potassium was isolated for the first time and was soon afterwards given the scientific abbreviation K representing a created Latin name Kalium, which was derived from 18th century scientific Latin Kali meaning potassium carbonate, which goes back etymologically to medieval Arabic al-qalī, which for the medieval Arabs was a mixture of potassium carbonate and sodium carbonate. Crossref alkali on the list.
O
orange نارنج nāranj (), orange (a citrus fruit), via Persian and Sanskrit nāraṅga from a Dravidian language. The orange tree came from India. It was introduced to the Mediterranean region by the Arabs in the early 10th century, at which time all oranges were bitter oranges. The word is in all the Mediterranean Latin languages from the later medieval centuries. Today it is naranja in Spanish, but arancia in Italian, and orange in French, and this wordform with the loss of the leading 'n' occurs early as Latin arangia (late 12th century).
P
popinjay (parrot) ببغاء babaghāʾ | babbaghāʾ (), parrot. The change from medieval Arabic sound /b/ to medieval Latin and French sound /p/ also occurs in the loanwords Julep, Jumper, Spinach, and Syrup. The French papegai = "parrot" has a late-12th-century start date and the English dates from a century later. The wordform was affected by the pre-existing (from classical Latin) French gai = Spanish gayo = English "jay (bird)". Parrots were imported to medieval Europe via Arabic speakers.