Curio
Today

caraway

KAR-uh-way · noun

Ancient GreekAramaicArabicMedieval LatinMiddle EnglishEnglish

Origin

English caraway comes from Middle English caraway (also carewey, carwey), from Medieval Latin carui, which came from Arabic karāwiyā. That Arabic word traveled through Aramaic from Ancient Greek karṓ / káron, meaning caraway.

Journey

The facts here point mostly to a long relay of borrowing — Greek to Aramaic to Arabic to Latin to English — rather than a shift in meaning; at every stage it seems to have named the same seed.

Related words

The facts given don't point to any surviving English cognate beyond the word itself — just this single chain of borrowed names.

More words

From Aramaic

Nearby, A–Z

All words A–Z →