Where does “Cathay” come from?

Cathay comes from Latin Cathaya, which derives from Latin Cataya, a term for a distant Asian region whose ultimate origin and meaning remain uncertain.

Cathay (English): legendary northern medieval China

Definitions

  1. legendary northern medieval China

Ancestry of “Cathay”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1LatinCathaya—
2Old Turkic𐰶𐰃𐱃𐰪Khitans
3Khitan𘱿𘲫—

Words derived from “Cathay”

Every word from Khitan 𘱿𘲫 →Every word from Old Turkic 𐰶𐰃𐱃𐰪 →Every word from Latin Cathaya →