From sofa to coffee: everyday words with Arabic roots

The Arabic "al-kuhl" is said to be the origin for the English word alcohol (and Alkohol in German). It derives from a reference to kohl, which was a kind of powdered eyeliner made via an extraction or distillation process from a natural mineral. In Europe, chemists referred to anything produced through an extraction process as alcohol.

A day without a cup or more of java: unimaginable for coffee lovers. Little do they know that the word coffee, or Kaffee in German, comes from Italian caffè, which in turn is derived from Turkish kahve, which goes back to the old Arabic word for wine, qahwah. Wine? For Muslims forbidden to drink alcoholic beverages, coffee became their stimulant — and was even known as the "wine of Islam."

To sweeten your coffee, you might need a spoonful of sugar. Arabic traders brought "sukkar" to Europe many hundreds of years ago. They originally got the word from Sanskrit, "sharkara," which meant "grit, gravel." The product and the word survived, it's zucchero in Italian, azucar in Spanish, Zucker in German and sucre in French.

Cup of sweetened coffee in hand, take a seat on the sofa. The Arabic-speaking world seemed to have a knack for luxury and comfort: the word "suffa" referred to a raised platform with carpeting to sit on, a seat of honor. The furniture concept and the term cropped up in Europe and European languages in the 17th century.

In Arabic, "matrah" was the place where you tossed cushions. It passed into Latin as materacium, and from there into Italian and other European languages. Voila, the word for a comfortable sleeping surface stuck, turning into mattress in English, Matratze in German, and matelas in French.

Newsweek, Vogue and co: Glossy magazines also come from the Arabic. "Makzin" — storehouse — became magazzino in Italian, and magasin in French, which means shop. That's how the term made it's way into English and German. Magazines are in fact a depot of sorts — a place to keep stories, pictures and information on paper.

This long-necked African animal derives its English and German name from the Arabic word "zarafa," via Italy. The ancient Romans knew the exotic animal Julius Caesar once presented in a triumphal procession in Rome. Medieval Europeans called the mysterious animal few had actually seen "camelopard," a combination of a camel and a leopard.