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scarlet

Scarlet was first a costly cloth and only later its colour. The best-supported account traces it to Latin sigillātus, 'decorated with little figures', which became Arabic siqillāṭ, a luxury cloth known from the 9th century, and reached Europe from Muslim Spain, where kermes-dyed cloth was made; Persian saqirlāt appears too late to be the source.

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The story you may have heard

Two stories are often repeated. One, still on Wikipedia, takes scarlet from Persian saqirlāt; but Persian forms appear only in the 1290s, a century after French escarlate, and are themselves from Arabic. The other, in Etymonline, makes it Germanic 'shorn cloth' (scar + lachen); but German Scharlach got its -lach by reshaping, so it shows a Germanic remodelling, not a Germanic source. The Arabic siqillāṭ route is the best-supported account, not a proven one.

The road to English

From Arabic to Persian

From Medieval Latin to Italian

From Old French to Middle High German, German

From Italian to New Latin, Russian

From Italian to Ottoman Turkish

From Middle High German to Polish

From Middle High German to Middle Dutch, Dutch

From Medieval Latin to Spanish

From Old French to French

70 BCELatin

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