Turban: The words 'turban' and 'tulip'… | etymologist.ai
turban
/ˈtɜːr.bən/·noun·c. 1561, in English travel literature, in the form 'tulbant' or 'turbant'·Established
Origin
From Persian 'dulband' (head-cloth) through Ottoman Turkish into Italian and French before reachingEnglish c. 1561, 'turban' shares a common ancestor with 'tulip' — both named for the same wound shape — while its binding element traces to PIE *bhendh-, the same root as 'bond' and 'bandana'.
Definition
A head-covering made by winding a long strip of cloth around the head or around an inner cap, originating in South and West Asian dress traditions.
The Full Story
Ottoman Turkish16th centurywell-attested
The word 'turban' entered English in the mid-16th century, with the earliest attested form appearing around 1561 as 'tulbant' or 'turbant', borrowed from French 'turbant' or directly from Ottoman Turkish 'tülbend' (also 'dulband'). The Ottoman Turkish form derived from Persian 'dulband' (دولبند), meaning 'sash' or 'long strip of cloth wound around the head', a compound of 'dul-' (uncertain, possibly related to winding or turning) and 'band' meaning 'tie, bond, strip of cloth', from Old Iranian *banda-, from PIE *bhendh- meaning 'to bind, tie'. The PIE root *bhendh- is well-attested across Indo-European languages: it yielded Sanskrit
Did you know?
Thewords 'turban' and 'tulip' are the same word. When European botanists first encountered the flower in Ottomangardens in the 1550s, they called it 'tulipan' — Turkish for turban — because the bloom looked like a head-cloth. Both words entered European languages simultaneously from the same
encountered the headgear through Ottoman trade routes, and the word spread rapidly into Italian ('turbante'), Spanish ('turbante'), Portuguese ('turbante'), and French before
confusion with the flower 'tulip', which was also named from Turkish 'tülbend' because of the flower's resemblance to a wound turban — both 'turban' and 'tulip' are thus doublets from the same Turkish source word. The modern English spelling 'turban' was stabilised by the 17th century. Key roots: *bhendh- (Proto-Indo-European: "to bind, tie, fasten"), band (بند) (Persian: "tie, bond, strip of cloth, fastening"), tülbend / dulband (Ottoman Turkish: "muslin cloth; wound cloth headdress").