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banana

Portuguese traders on the Guinea coast of West Africa picked up 'banana' as a local name for the fruit, recorded in 1563, and carried it with the plant to Brazil and the Caribbean; English took it in the 1590s, and later lent it to Japanese, Zulu, Māori and Tok Pisin. The fruit itself came from Southeast Asia.

Weakest linkCertain

The story you may have heard

A popular derivation, repeated by Ayto's Diner's Dictionary and the extracted draft, takes banana from Arabic banān 'fingertips, fingers' because of the fruit's shape. The word first appears in Portuguese as a Guinea-coast name (1563), and the Arabic sense 'banana' is itself a modern borrowing from French. No mechanism links Arabic banān to the West African word.

The road to English

From Portuguese to French, Modern Standard Arabic

From Portuguese to Wolof

From English to Japanese

From Portuguese to Spanish

From Portuguese to Dutch

From French to German

From French to Russian, Uzbek

From French to Romanian

From English to American English

From English to Korean

From English to Zulu

From English to Māori

From English to Tok Pisin

1563Portuguese

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.