كبابة

It can handily be derived as a diminutive formation of كُبَّة‎ (kubba, “spherule; meatball”); however Persian کبابه چینی‎ (kabâba-yi čînî), کباب چینی‎ (kabâb-i čînî, “cubeb”) and Hindi कबाबचीनी f (kabābcīnī, “cubeb”) may also lay claim upon this word as more complete forms and closer to the plant’s home in Srivijaya. It could be a calque of Old Javanese kumukus (“cubeb; smoke”), from kukus (“smoke, steam”), based on a connection to Arabic كُبَّة‎ (kubba, “meatball”) or كَبَاب‎ (kabāb, “roast meat, kebab”) respectively Persian کباب‎ (kabâb, “roast meat, kebab”) or Hindi कबाब (kabāb, “roast meat, kebab”). However also present in Classical Syriac ܟܒܳܒܳܐ‎ (kəḇāḇā, “cubeb”), which can be put to ܟܽܘܒܴ݁ܐ‎ (kubbā, “spine”) used for various spiny plants, and would explain the vowel variation.

• IPA^(key): /ka.baː.ba/, /ku.baː.ba/

كَبَابَة or كُبَابَة • (kabāba or kubāba) f

1. cubeb (Piper cubeba)

   Synonym: حَبّ الْعَرُوس‎ (ḥabb al-ʕarūs)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ibn Luyūn to this entry?)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of كتاب عمدة الطبيب في معرفة النبات لكل لبيب to this entry?)

• → Middle Armenian: քապապայ (kʿapapay)

• Brockelmann, Carl (1928) Lexicon Syriacum (in Latin), 2nd edition, Halle: Max Niemeyer, published 1995, page 315
• Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Angeles, editors (2017) Dictionnaire du faisceau dialectal arabe andalou. Perspectives phraséologiques et étymologiques (in French), Berlin: De Gruyter, page 1086, according to whom from Persian
• Dozy, Reinhart Pieter Anne (1881), “كبابة”, in Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes (in French), volume 2, Leiden: E. J. Brill, page 436a–b, believing in a native derivation
• Fīrūzābādī (1834) Al-uqiyānūs al-basīt‎, volume I, translated from Arabic into Ottoman Turkish by Aḥmad ʻĀṣim, 2nd edition, Constantinople, page 242
• King, Anya (2015), “The New materia medica of the Islamicate Tradition: The Pre-Islamic Context”, in Journal of the American Oriental Society‎, volume 135, issue 3, →DOI, page 504 of 499–528, deeming it a “good Arabic derivation”, though confronted with the view of a Persian borrowing, still “much more plausible”.
• Steinschneider, Moritz (1898), “Heilmittelnamen der Araber”, in Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes‎, volume 12, § 1637, page 327
• Ullmann, Manfred (1959–1970) Wörterbuch der klassischen arabischen Sprache. Band I (in German), Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, page 16b, claims the vowel form كُبَابَة (kubāba) late
• Wehr, Hans (1979), “كبابة”, in J. Milton Cowan, editor, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th edition, Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, →ISBN, page 946b