English Words from Arabic
zenith
سَمْتُ الرَّأْس
samt ar-raʾs
The point of the sky straight above you; figuratively, the peak. Copyists turned samt into zenit. (American Heritage alone traces samt itself to Latin semita, 'path'; Arabic dictionaries treat it as Arabic.)
- Meaning in Arabic
- the path over the head
- Arabic today says
- سَمْتُ الرَّأْس، والذُّرْوَة
The path between languagessamt → zenit → zenith
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