Egyptian Loanwords in English

Did you know? The pyramids were more ancient to Cleopatra than Cleopatra is to us. A few words of this fascinating civilization seeped through Greek and Latin to English. The Egyptian word is given in the left column. I tried to be as comprehensive as possible. There are some other words for which Egyptian origins have been theorized, which are however rejected by most experts: see the comments.

* Words with asterisks have uncertain or disputed etymologies.

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Last updated: March 27, 2025

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First submitted	March 27, 2025
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ḏbt

Unbaked bricks. Or a tech company that allows you to view PDFs.

adobe

ꜥj-r-bꜣstjt

Soft, off-white and translucent stone used for carvings.*

alabaster

jmn

A chemical with the formula NH3, used in the production of fertilizer. Named after an Egyptian god.

ammonia

jnst

A spice whose taste resembles licorice and fennel. Used to flavor certain sweets and liquors.*

anise

bꜣjr

A poetic word for a sailboat with a flat bottom. With the prefixes em- and dis-, it becomes a verb meaning to go on and off board.

bark

bḫn

Dark type of rock which is solidified lava. Under certain circumstances it produces columns like the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. In antiquity, it meant 'touchstone'.

basalt

hbnj

A jet black and very dense tropical hardwood.

ebony

ꜣbw

The largest terrestrial mammal on Earth. Perhaps the second syllable is derived from Egyptian.*

elephant

ꜣbw

A shiny white material made from the tusks of the above animal. Historically an expensive product used for carving, nowadays illegal.

ivory

t3-'b.t

A bitter leafy green closely related to chicory, radicchio and catalogna. There are curly and Belgian varieties.*

endive

qmyt

Resin-like substance from plants used as a thickener, stabilizer and emulsifier in the food industry. Historically, people chewed on this; a modern type of candy is derived from this practice.

gum

ḥlm

A firm sheep's and/or goat's cheese from the eastern Mediterranean, which can be fried.

halloumi

hbj

A group of bird species with long, thin and curved bills. In Ancient Egypt, associated with the god of wisdom, Thoth.

ibis

nṯrj

A mixture of sodium salts used by the Egyptians to dessicate the mummies. Also the source for the chemical symbol for sodium.

natron

nṯrj

A chemical element. Air consists for around 80% of this. Its name is derived from a different word for saltpeter, a potassium salt, from the same Egyptian source as above.

nitrogen

wḥꜣt

A spring of water in a desert.

oasis

šzp-ꜥnḫ

A creature with the head of a human and the body of an animal, female in Greek myth and male in Egyptian. A large and ancient statue of it exists in front of the Great Pyramids of Giza.*

sphinx

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