- alizarin
- from Arabic "asara," "to press fruit"
- assassin
- from Arabic "hashashishiyyin," "hashish eaters"
- bastard
- from Latin "bastum," "packsaddle"; compare with Old French "fils de bast," i.e. the son of mule driver who uses a packsaddle for a pillow and is gone by morning
- calculus
- from Latin "calculus," "small pebble (as used on an abacus)"
- canvas
- from Latin "cannabis," "hemp"
- feisty
- from American English "feist," "small dog"; from Middle English "fysten," "fart"
- fiasco
- from Italian "far fiasco," "make a bottle"
- glamour
- said to be an alteration of English "grammar" in a specialized use of that word's medieval sense of "any sort of scholarship, especially occult learning"
- helicopter
- from Greek "helix," "spiral" + "pteron," "wing"
- karaoke
- from Japanese "karappo," "empty" + "okesutura," "orchestra"
- Pima
- from Uto-Aztecan "pi ma:c," "(I) don't know" given in answer to some question long ago and mistaken by the Spanish as a tribal name
- planet
- from Greek "planasthai," "to wander"
- schlock
- from Yiddish "shlak," "an apoplectic stroke"
- seersucker
- from Persian "shir o shakkar," "milk and sugar," a reference to the alternately smooth and puckered surfaces of the stripes
- vanilla
- from Latin "vagina," "sheath of an ear of grain, hull of a plant"
jul 13 2017 ∞
apr 12 2021 +