Where does “rum” come from?
Rum is an English word of unknown origin, with the earliest sense obscured by limited historical documentation of its first appearance.
rum (English): A distilled spirit derived from fermented cane...
Definitions
- A distilled spirit derived from fermented cane...
Ancestry of “rum”, step by step
rum traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via Ottoman Turkish روم
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ottoman Turkish | روم | Various other areas of the Ottoman Empire full of "Roman" (i.e. Byzantine Greek) people, particularly central Anatolia |
| 2 | Arabic | رُوم | Byzantines |
| 3 | Middle Persian | 𐭧𐭫𐭥𐭬 | Rome; Byzantine |
| 4 | Ancient Greek | Ῥωμανία | Byzantine Empire |
| 5 | Ancient Greek | -ῐ́ᾱ | {{l|en|-ia}}; "suffix forming abstract feminine... |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | -íh₂ | — |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | -h₂ | Creates collective nouns, which refer to groups... |