Words Arabic Took In
keration
القِيراط
qīrāṭ
Qīrāṭ is Greek keration, 'little horn', the carob seed once used as a weight. Al-Jawaliqi called it foreign; Ibn Durayd derived it from Arabic qarraṭa, 'to give little by little'. From Arabic it passed into the languages of Europe as carat, and into Spanish as quilate.
- Came
- From Greek
- Original meaning
- little horn: the carob seed
- Meaning in Arabic
- a small weight
«قال بعضُ الحُسّاب: القيراطُ في لغة اليونان حبّةُ خرنوب، وهو نصفُ دانق.»
It then went on from Arabic into European languages.
Ibn Durayd wrote (al-Jamhara 2/757) that qirrāṭ, called qīrāṭ, comes from qarraṭa, 'to give little by little'; Lisan al-'Arab follows him, and Ahmad Shakir prefers his view. Al-Zamakhshari reverses it, deriving qarraṭa from qīrāṭ.
Modern dictionaries differ on which European language took it first from Arabic, Italian carato or Medieval Latin. Spanish quilate came from Andalusi Arabic, says the Royal Spanish Academy.
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Sources
- الفيّوميّ، المصباح المنير ٢/٤٩٨
- الخوارزميّ الكاتب، مفاتيح العلوم ص٢٠٢
- ابن دريد، جمهرة اللغة ٢/٧٥٧
- الجواليقيّ، المعرّب، تحقيق أحمد شاكر، ص٢٥٦
- American Heritage Dictionary: carat
- TLFi (CNRTL): carat
- Real Academia Española, DLE: quilate
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