برباريس

Where it comes from

This form is considered a reborrowing from Medieval Latin berberis, barberis (“barberry”), and the Latin, originating in Spain, probably renders a reading of *برب ارغيس or *بر ارغيس in an Arabic manuscript about plants and their appellations, representing a siglum for بَرْبَرِيَّة (barbariyya, “Berber language”) (as it is common practice to abbreviate language names in glossaries) and the Berber name of the barberry أَرْغِيس (ʔarḡīs, “barberry”), which also passed via Andalusian Arabic into the colloquial Romance as Spanish alarguez (“barberry”).

Various distortions have taken place in variants represented by Latin amberberis, emiberberis, amiberberis, ami berberis, amyrberberis, containing Latin ami from Ancient Greek ἄμι (ámi), the Arabic article اَمـ (am-), perhaps a Berber prefix, Persian انبار (anbâr, present stem of various verbs) and Arabic أَمِير (ʔamīr, “prince”).

Similarly patterned loans include خَنْدَرِيس (ḵandarīs, “spelt; groats”) and قَنْبَرِيس (qanbarīs, “yoghurt drained of whey”).