fig

English fig comes from Middle English fige, borrowed through Anglo-Norman and Old French figue from Old Occitan figa, tracing to Vulgar Latin *fīca and Latin fīcus, the fig tree. Beneath that Latin word may lie a pre-Indo-European source, possibly Phoenician for 'ripe fig,' echoed in Hebrew paggâ and Syriac paggāʾ.

The word entered English through a chain of Romance languages before settling into its short modern form. Its texture also lent a name to a granulated kind of soap, whose grainy surface reminded people of a fig's flesh.

Fig is a doublet of fico, another English word descended from the same Latin fīcus.