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. Rare and archaic 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
K
Khalsa, Khalistan خالصة khalsa () 'pure, real, proper.'
Kermes (insect genus), kermes (dye), kermes oak (tree), kermesite (mineral) قِرمِز qirmiz (), dye from kermes-type scale insects including (but not limited to) today's Kermes insects. The bodies of several scale insect species produce a crimson dye that in medieval times was commercially valuable for dyeing textiles. Medieval Arabic dictionaries say al-qirmiz is an "Armenian red dye", which means dye from the Armenian cochineal insects of today's English, which are distinct from the Kermes insects. The word was in use in Arabic for centuries before it started to be used in European languages, and was adopted in Europe beginning in the late 13th century, in Italy, with the same meaning as the Arabic. In Europe the meaning began to be narrowed to today's Kermes species in scientific botany and taxonomy works of the mid 16th century.
khat, cathinone قات qāt (), the plant Catha edulis and the stimulant obtained from it. Khat was borrowed directly from Arabic qāt in the mid 19th century. The technical botany name Catha was borrowed from the same Arabic in the mid-18th century (botanist was Peter Forskal).
kismet قسمة qisma (), destinity, fate. Kismet was borrowed into English via Turkish from the original Arabic word qisma which means portion or lot.
kohl (cosmetics) كحل kohl (), finely powdered galena , stibnite, and similar sooty-colored powder used for eye-shadow, eye-liner, and mascara. The word with that meaning was in many travellers' reports in English, from travellers in Arabic lands, for centuries before it was adopted natively in English. Crossref alcohol which was transferred from the same Arabic word at an earlier time by a different pathway.
L
lacquer, lac لكّ lakk, () lac. The Arabic came from the Sanskrit lākh = "lac", a particular kind of resin, native in India, used to make a varnish and also used as a red colorant. Lac was valued foremostly as a red colorant in the medieval era. The medieval Arabs imported lac from India. The word entered medieval Latin as lacca | laca in the early 9th century, although instances are scarce in Latin before the 12th century. It is found late medievally in all of the Western Latinate languages. Two lesser-seen varnishing resins with Arabic word-descent are sandarac and elemi.
lazurite (mineral) See azure.
lemon, limonene ليمون līmūn (), lemon. The cultivation of lemons, limes, and bitter oranges was introduced to the Mediterranean region by the Arabs in the mid-medieval era. The ancient Greeks & Romans knew the citron, but not the lemon, lime, or orange. Ibn al-'Awwam in the late 12th century distinguished ten kinds of citrus fruits grown in Andalusia and spelled the lemon as اللامون al-lāmūn. Abdallatif al-Baghdadi (died 1231) distinguished almost as many different citrus fruits in Egypt and spelled the lemon as الليمون al-līmūn. The Arabic word came from Persian. The lemon tree's native origin appears to be in India.