War, law & rule

czar (tsar)

Julius Caesar's family name became the word for 'emperor' everywhere: Germanic kaisar and Kaiser, Slavic tsar' (first claimed by Bulgarian and Serbian rulers, then by Ivan the Terrible), and, through Greek, Arabic and Persian qayṣar, the Ottoman sultans' 'Caesar of Rome'. English spelled it czar after a 1549 Latin book on Muscovy, and American English made a czar any powerful official.

Weakest linkProbable

The road to English

From Latin to Old High German, German, English

From Latin to Koine Greek, Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish

From Old Church Slavonic to Bulgarian

From Old Church Slavonic to Serbo-Croatian

From Russian to French

From Russian to Finnish

From Russian to Japanese

From English to American English

50 BCELatin

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