מִשְׁמֵשׁ (mishmesh) — apricot

Etymology

The Hebrew word מִשְׁמֵשׁ for apricot entered the language from Arabic, where the fruit is called mishmish. The Arabic word is most likely a phonetic distortion of Syriac Aramaic kmishmisha, which means "dried apricot." The Syriac root כמ״ש means "dry" — a root that exists in Hebrew as well (cf. כָּמַשׁ, to wither). The apricot was thus named, in this etymology, as "the dried one" — a fruit famously suitable for drying.

The apricot is one of four summer stone fruits from the rose family that have Hebrew names reflecting their separate paths into the language. The peach (אֲפַרְסֵק) arrived in Roman Palestine in the 1st–2nd century CE; its name is a Hebraized form of Latin persica (Persian apple), with a prothetic aleph added to ease pronunciation of the consonant cluster. The plum (שָׁזִיף) was known to the Talmud as dormaskīn (Damascus plum), but the Haskalah writer Mendel Lepin chose instead to follow Rashi's identification of שְׁזָפִין (Talmud, Yoma 81a) and called it שָׁזִיף — a form that competed with שָׁזוּף through the 19th century until שָׁזִיף prevailed. The cherry (דּוּבְדְּבָן) evolved from the Talmudic גּוּדְגְּנִית, through Mendele Moykher Sforim's revived דּוּבְדְּבָנִיּוֹת (1862), to the modern singular form coined by back-derivation in the late 19th century.

The apricot was first named in Hebrew by the translator Natan ha-Me'ati in his 1279 Roman translation of Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine, the most important medical encyclopedia of the medieval world. However, the name did not enter active use until the end of the 19th century, when Zionist agricultural pioneers adopted it directly from their Arab neighbors. The connection to the root כמ״ש (dryness) may have been felt, since the word formally resembles the Hebrew word שֶׁמֶשׁ (sun) — leading some to propose the popular etymology "sun-fruit" (מֻשְׁמַשׁ, "sunned"), though this is almost certainly folk etymology rather than the true origin.

Key Quotes

"שִׁמְשִׁי — אַף שֶׁיֵּשׁ הָאוֹמְרִים שֶׁשֵּׁם הַמִּשְׁמֵשׁ הָעֲרָבִי נוֹבֵעַ מֵהַמִּלָּה הָעֲרָבִית מֻשְׁמַּס 'שִׁמְשִׁי', יוֹתֵר סָבִיר שֶׁמְּדוּבָּר בְּשִׁיבּוּשׁ שֶׁל כְּמִשְׁמִשָׁא — מִשְׁמֵשׁ מְיֻבָּשׁ בָּאֲרָמִית הַסּוּרִית" — אילון גלעד

Timeline

• 13th century CE: Natan ha-Me'ati uses מִשְׁמֵשׁ in his Hebrew translation of Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine (Rome, 1279)
• Late 19th century: Zionist agricultural pioneers in Palestine adopt the word from their Arab neighbors
• Late 19th – early 20th century: Word enters active Hebrew vocabulary through agricultural literature and newspapers

Related Words

• אֲפַרְסֵק — peach (from Latin persica via Mishnaic Hebrew, 1st–2nd century CE)
• שָׁזִיף — plum (from Talmudic שְׁזָפִין; revived by Mendel Lepin, late 18th century)
• דּוּבְדְּבָן — cherry (from Talmudic גּוּדְגְּנִית via Mendele Moykher Sforim, 1862)
• נֶקְטָרִינָה — nectarine (a smooth-skinned peach; from English nectarine, from Greek nectar; sometimes called אֲפַרְשְׁזִיף in the 1980s, now rare)
• כָּמַשׁ — to wither, dry up (the likely Hebrew cognate of the root underlying the Syriac source)