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henna

Arabic ḥinnāʾ names the shrub whose dried leaves make a red-orange dye for hair, hands and beards. It travelled with bridal henna nights to Persian, Turkish kına, Swahili hina and Israeli Hebrew; medieval Europe first met the word inside alkanet, and English took henna itself around 1600.

Weakest linkCertain

The road to English

From Arabic to Medieval Latin, Middle English

From Arabic to Ottoman Turkish, Turkish

From Arabic to Malay

From Arabic to Old Spanish

From Old Spanish to Spanish

From Arabic to Middle French

From Arabic to Russian

From Arabic to Persian, Urdu

From Arabic to Swahili

From Arabic to Modern Hebrew

700 CEArabic

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