Where does “Barbary” come from?
Barbary comes from English Berber, from Arabic بربري, from Ancient Greek βάρβαρος, ultimately from the reduplicative Ancient Greek βαρ-βαρ.
Barbary (English): The Mediterranean coastal areas of North Africa that were used as a base by pirates in the 16th to 19th centuries
Definitions
- The Mediterranean coastal areas of North Africa that were used as a base by pirates in the 16th to 19th centuries
Ancestry of “Barbary”, step by step
Barbary traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English Berber
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | Berber | A member of a particular ethnic group indigenous... |
| 2 | English | -y | Added to nouns and adjectives to form adjectives... |
| 3 | Middle English | -y | Designates an adjective, in many cases formed by... |
| 4 | Old English | -iġ | -y, -ic |
| 5 | Proto-West Germanic | -g | Forms adjectives from nouns and verbs with a... |
| 6 | Proto-Germanic | -gaz | -y |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | -ḱos | -y, -ic |