Plants with Arabic Names
Carthamus
العُصْفُر
Carthamus tinctorius
A plant grown for the dye of its flowers and the oil of its seeds. Its scientific name, Carthamus, is Arabic qurṭum, which al-Jawhari defines as 'the seed of safflower'; its English name, safflower, goes back to Arabic aṣfar, 'yellow'. Two Arabic words for one plant.
- Source of the name
- From an Arabic word
- From the Arabic word
- qurṭum
- Genus
- Carthamus
- Species shown
- Carthamus tinctorius
«القِرْطِمُ: حَبُّ العُصْفُرِ، والقُرْطُمُ مثلُه.»
Wadghiri (1/362–363) dates French carthame to 1512, 'through medieval Latin carthamus, or directly from Arabic'; Delile (1813) recorded it as qortom among the plants he saw in Egypt, and the word is 'Aramaic or Indian, Arabised'. Ibn al-Baytar's al-Jamiʿ: qurṭum is safflower.
Wiktionary traces English safflower to Middle French safleur, originally from Arabic aṣfar, 'yellow', influenced by safran ('saffron') and fleur ('flower').
Paulatz (Wikimedia Commons), copyrighted free use
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Sources
- الجوهريّ، الصحاح ٥/٢٠١٠
- عبد العلي الودغيري، العربيّات المغتربات ١/٣٦٢–٣٦٣
- Wiktionary: safflower
- CNRTL (TLFi): carthame
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