Myths & disputes

turmeric

Turmeric is a 16th-century reshaping of Middle English turmeryte, a word of unknown origin. Scholarly Latin and French called the spice terra merita, 'deserving earth', but no one knows why, and the proposed Arabic source is only a guess.

Weakest linkCertain

The story you may have heard

Turmeric is often said to be a corruption of Arabic kurkum 'turmeric, saffron'. Klein suggested this, and Wiktionary repeats it as possible, but the forms don't match and no intermediate is known. Kurkum is the source of the botanical name Curcuma, not of turmeric.

The road to English

1400Middle English

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

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