Everyday LifeGreek → English
Sesame
/ˈsɛsəmi/noun
A tall plant grown for its flat oil-rich seeds, used whole or pressed.
The Greek roots
σήσαμον
sḗsamon
sesame seed
Literally: “oil plant”
Follow a root:σήσαμον1 word
The story of the word
The crop came from the Near East and so did the word: Akkadian shamashshammu, roughly 'oil plant', travelled through a Semitic chain into Greek σήσαμον. English had it by the fifteenth century. 'Open sesame' is not ancient at all; it enters with Antoine Galland's French Arabian Nights in the early eighteenth century, and one explanation for the password is that a ripe sesame pod springs open with a snap.
- How it travelled
- Semitic → Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
In a sentence
Toast the sesame in a dry pan until it starts jumping, then stop.