Curio
Today

tulip

TOO-lip · noun

Origin

Tulip comes from Middle French tulipe, from earlier tulipan, borrowed from Ottoman Turkish tülbent/dülbent meaning "cheesecloth," which itself came from Classical Persian dulband, "turban."

This is Curio: one word's origin story, every morning. No feed, no backlog.

One short email each morning. Free; stop anytime. See a sample →

Journey

The word started out naming a piece of cloth wound into headwear, but by the time it reached French and then English, it had shifted entirely to name the flower, likely because the bloom's shape recalled a wrapped turban.

Related words

Tulip is a doublet of turban — both trace back to the same Persian word for headwear, just arriving in English by different routes.

More words

From Ottoman Turkish

Nearby, A–Z

All words A–Z →