At a deep cultural level, many Persian and English words are cognates that derive from their shared Proto-Indo-European roots. These cognates are too numerous to list here.
Many words of Persian origin have made their way into English through different circuitous routes. Some of them, like "paradise" date to the cultural contacts between the Persians and Greeks in the Hellenistic culture of Antiquity, and through Greek and then Latin found their way to English. Persian as the second important language of Islam has influenced many languages in the Muslim world, and its words have found their way beyond the Muslim world.
Persia, which was never colonised by outsiders, remained largely impenetrable to English-speaking travellers, well into the 19th century. Persia was protected from Europe by overland trade routes that passed through territory inhospitable to non-Muslims, while trade at Persian ports in the Persian Gulf was in the hands of locals. In contrast, intrepid English traders operated in Mediterranean seaports of the Levant from the 1570s, and some vocabulary describing features of Ottoman culture found their way into the English language. Thus many in the following list of English borrowings, though they were originally from Persian, arrived in English through Turkish mediaries. Compare List of English words of Etruscan origin for a similar situation.
Other words of Persian origin found their way into European languages— and eventually reached English at second-hand— through the Moorish-Christian cultural interface in the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages thus being transmitted through Arabic or, much later, through Hindi during the British Raj.
evil spirit, prince of demons, from L. Asmodaeus, from Gk. Asmodaios, from Talmudic Heb. Ashmeday, from Avestan (Old-Iranian) Aesh-ma-dæva, lit. "Aeshma the deceitful."
check (n.) from O.Fr. eschequier "a check at chess," from eschec, from V.L. *scaccus, from Ar. shah, from Pers. shah "king," the principal piece in a chess game (see shah). When the king is in check a player's choices are limited. Meaning widened from chess to general sense of "adverse event, sudden stoppage" and by c.1700 to "a token used to check against loss or theft" (surviving in hat check) and "a check against forgery or alteration," which gave the modern financial use of "bank check, money draft" (first recorded 1798), probably influenced by exchequeur. Check-up "careful examination" is 1921, Amer.Eng., on notion of a checklist of things to be examined.
from Pers. Farangi: from the word French: a person from France: the first foreigners that significantly influenced the goverment under the Ghajar dynasty in Iran.
a corruption of the Latin word "Persicum." Peaches are called in Latin malum Persicum (Persian apple) prunum persicum (Persian plum), or simply persicum (pl. persici). This should not be confused with the more modern LinnaeanclassificationPrunus persica, a neologism describing the peach tree itself (from the Latin prunus, -i; an odd feminine noun with a masculine ending which signifies "plum tree).
from Persian: روشنك Roshanak, meaning "little star" its variants in English are meaning "dawn." Variants include, Roxane and Roxanne. Diminutives are Roxie and Roxy.
