English Words of Arabic Origin

Based on a definition and starting letter guess these English words that came to us via Arabic.

Some words passed through intermediate languages to English

The definition is the English definition not necessarily the Arabic one

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Last updated: December 31, 2019

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First submitted	December 28, 2015
Times taken	49,717
Average score	70.0%
Rating	4.54

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Definition

Word

Dip made of chickpeas, tahini, etc...

Hummus

Commander of a fleet of ships

Admiral

Animal with a long neck

Giraffe

One who kills a political leader or other prominent figure

Assassin

Leader of an Arab tribe or village

Sheik

Deep red color

Crimson

Leader of the Ottoman Empire

Sultan

Embalmed human corpse

Mummy

Group of wives and concubines

Harem

Branch of mathematics dealing with rules for solving certain equations

Algebra

Tropical rainy season where it rains for several months with little interruption

Monsoon

A demon who feeds on corpses; Alternately, a graverobber

Ghoul

Medieval string instrument

Lute

Opposite of zenith

Nadir

Plant whose white flowers are used to flavor green tea

Jasmine

Trip to hunt or photograph wild animals

Safari

Unit of weight used to measure gems

Carat

Plant that horses eat

Alfalfa

Type of bird with a long wingspan

Albatross

Something fun to drink with chemical formula C₂H₆O

Alcohol

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63 Comments

Level ∞

Dec 31, 2019

Thanks also to Snev from whom some questions were taken.

+13

Level 39

Jan 8, 2020

Wow I can't believe my quizzes got recognized! Thanks for giving credit

+11

Level 86

Dec 31, 2019

There could be easily a part two.

+18

Level 76

Jan 1, 2020

Interesting that the largely teetotal Arabic world has given us the word alcohol.

+25

Level 75

Jan 1, 2020

Maybe that says something about you (just joking).

Alcohol has other uses, though admittedly it was probably first used for drinking. Goes back to accidentally mixing water with honey, creating heavenly mead.

Anyway, Arabic was spoken for centuries if not millennia before the Muslim prohibition.

Level 71

Jan 1, 2020

Just for nitpicking: beer has been probably the oldest alcohol drink (archeology revealed beer jars some 5000 BC).

Level 63

Jan 8, 2020

Alcohol was not initially forbidden in Islam, but after an incident where an important Imam drank too much and was not able to lead the prayers correctly, it was banned for drinking and can only be used for medicinal purposes.

Level 76

Jan 9, 2020

And which Imam was that? I have never heard this story. I know for a fact that alcohol was gradually banned by Muhammad himself through decrees of God, revealed and preserved to this day in specific verses of the Quran, which are easily found by searching Quran.com or a similar site with an index of the Quran.

Level 76

Jan 9, 2020

If you mean this incident happened at the time of Muhammad before the prohibition, then yes that's possible.

Level 74

Oct 5, 2021

It's an interesting history, and far older than 5000 BC. It appears that beer was being produced in the ancient near east as much as 13,000 years ago. Ancient evidence from China, around 9,000 years ago (7000 BC) was of a beverage fermented from honey, rice and grapes, making it (technically, since it is fermented from a grain) beer, mead and wine, all at once!

I've never before heard the idea that any of these processes took place by "accident"; that is surely a folk conjecture. Indeed, fermentation is a natural process that can take place without human intervention at all; it's something that was discovered and refined, not invented, let alone by accident.

Level 89

Jan 3, 2020

Would apples fit the horse clue?

+11

Level 89

Jan 7, 2020

Apple is a germanic word.

Level 43

Jan 9, 2020

Alple

Level 78

Jan 6, 2020

Could Jasmin work for Jasmine?

Level 47

Jan 8, 2020

I kept trying to put in absinthe for the drink. I was way too complicated, I guess.

Level 47

Jan 8, 2020

Also, I'm kind of surprised that so few people got alfalfa.

Level 69

Jan 8, 2020

I only got it by guessing, I've never seen alfalfa, and horses in Ireland (where I live) don't eat it. I don't think it's cultivated or used much in Europe.

+14

Level 63

Jan 8, 2020

I have never even heard of alfalfa.

Level 67

Nov 23, 2021

It's the kid in Little Rascals.

Level 67

Nov 27, 2022

When I was a kid we used to grow alfalfa in a jar on the kitchen windowsill, so we ate it all the time, on its own, in salads, even in stir fry or jaffles. We are humans.

Level 91

Dec 2, 2022

@Zupity, lol at that last sentence. Thanks for clarifying ;)

Also, your comment led me to look up jaffles, since I had never encountered the term before. They look quite tasty!

Level 89

Jan 8, 2020

I just didn't know the English name. In French, we call it Luzerne...

Level 79

Jan 29, 2020

Same in German. And it is fed to horses regularly. But I had heard the plant name "Alfalfa" before, so I thought that might be it.

Level 32

Apr 21, 2021

It's not a well-known plant, at least in the UK. Most people will associate hay with horses, and little else bar grass and sugar-lumps.

Level 69

Nov 27, 2022

Two days ago, I probably wouldn't have known it, but just yesterday I read an article about a Saudi owned farm in Arizona that is growing alfalfa and using a lot of precious groundwater to do it.

That alfalfa gets exported as feed for Saudi dairy cows. Aquifers once used for farming in Saudi Arabia have long since run dry because of unsustainable practices, and so now, they can no longer grow their own feed.

Level 66

Nov 29, 2022

mersey doats and dozy doats and little lambsy divey

Level 55

Jul 23, 2024

Would have had alfafa been accepted!

Level 76

Jan 8, 2020

I would have thought admiral to have come from latin. Via something like ad +mare.

Level 72

Jan 8, 2020

Jasmine is a Persian word. Apparently, according to Wikipedia, it did pass through Arabic before coming to English, but the origin is Persian.

Level 79

Jan 8, 2020

Same holds for about half of these words. Albatross and carat are ultimately from Greek.

+13

Level ∞

Jan 9, 2020

Every word on this list came from another language first. Arabic didn't spring into existence fully formed from the ether.

Level 54

Jan 8, 2020

Did anyone else try ammonia for the 'something fun to drink' question? Probably just me...

Level 66

Jan 8, 2020

Not just you

Level 71

Jan 10, 2020

Well I tried acetone first and to be fair I was just one carbon off.

Level 86

Jan 8, 2020

Albatross!

Level 51

Jan 9, 2020

The Alcohol formula is C2H6OH. There is one more atom of hydrogen in the end

Level ∞

Jan 9, 2020

Here's where I got my info. Please edit if incorrect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol

Level 89

Jan 9, 2020

CH3-CH2-OH, that's six hydrogens alright.

Level 72

Jan 14, 2020

commonly expressed as C2H5OH, so it's fine as is. But it's the formula for ethanol, not alcohol - ethanol is just one kind of alcohol.

Level 66

Apr 19, 2021

True, but people commonly say they're drinking alcohol and they mean specifically the alcohol ethanol. Methanol is not fun to drink.

Level 60

Jul 23, 2024

That's an understatement. CH3OH will lead you down a blind alley :)

Level 42

Jan 9, 2020

I'm surprised alcabala, Al Capone, Al Pacino, Al Gore, Al Smith weren't included in the list.

(just joking, on the basis that teachers use to say everything beginning with 'al' is of Arabic origin)

Level 71

Mar 17, 2020

Allegedly they all met in an alley behind the Alamo. Although allergic to aloe, their ally Al Gore altruistically allowed an alternative meeting drinking ale and listening to altos in the Alps to slip.

Level 51

Apr 28, 2021

alpaca

Level 63

Jan 20, 2020

I tried Gul, Ghul and Ghool. Then I gave up thinkging I must be wrong.

Level 76

Apr 14, 2025

Alghoul, a spirit ;)

Level 21

Mar 9, 2020

I could not, for the life of me, spell hummus. It is quite humiliating.

Level 82

Feb 10, 2021

I only missed alfalfa!!

Level 51

Apr 28, 2021

aint sheik zelda

Level 58

Dec 23, 2021

aren't most of these loanwords instead of descended from Arabic words?

Level 56

Jun 8, 2022

A sheikh is a religious leader, like a priest, not a tribe leader

Level 52

Nov 11, 2022

Admiral is a good one. Amir-al-Bar is the word origin, meaning prince/commander of the sea. Learned that one in a Naval History book

Level 32

Nov 27, 2022

Add bazaar?

Level 79

Nov 27, 2022

What about AlPacino? Or is that an Italian word?

Level 77

Nov 28, 2022

Took me way too long to get the red colour...

Level 60

Jul 23, 2024

Love it, great quiz. I do not know if I just have good vocabulary (humble brag) but this was uber easy. Except for Lute vs. lyre I didn't have to even think.

Level 78

Jul 23, 2024

Swahili is heavily influenced by Arabic, but I think that the word safari (derived from an Arabic word) is actually Swahili in origin. As in, I think the English got it from Swahili speakers, in the Swahili form.

Level 72

Jul 23, 2024

To be fair, a lot of these words didn't enter English directly but entered via another language like Greek or Spanish. At least with safari it is still very close to the original Arabic word 'safar' meaning journey. If a word changed a lot in the other languages, like a giant game of telephone/Chinese whispers, I think it would make less sense to include it (coffee comes from the Arabic word 'qahwa' but it reached English via Turkish, Dutch, etc. and changed a lot).

Level 79

Jul 24, 2024

Just missed alfalfa

Level 79

Jul 24, 2024

Assassin is a cool word, comes from the word Hashashin which means "user of hashish" or "hashish eater" because the legend, as spread by accounts such as Marco Polo's was that the Ismaili Nizari Muslims had an Order of Assassins where members would smoke hashish and be taken to the mountains where they'd be given missions, one of the first times where political assassinations were widely used as a form of warfare. This is also the inspiration for Assassin's Creed and R'as al Ghul in DC Comics

Level 79

Jul 24, 2024

And then Shakespeare was the first one to popularize it in verb form, assassinate

Level 56

May 5, 2025

Wow, I did not know many of these words actually had an Arabic origin. Great quiz.

Level 39

Dec 8, 2025

wow, alcohol is arabic word?