Etymo

artichoke

A plant whose flower head is eaten as a vegetable.

Played on · Day 62 · word 5 of 5

A long way from its first syllable

How artichoke reached English

oldest first
  1. Arabic

    al-khurshūf

    ‘the artichoke’

  2. Old Spanish

    alcarchofa

  3. Italian

    articiocco

  4. English

    artichoke

The story of artichoke

English borrowed an Italian dialect form whose history ultimately reaches Arabic.

The Arabic form is an ultimate ancestor; the Italian dialect word is the immediate English source.

Sources

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