2791: Marzipan Aug 11, 2024

The confectionary treat, marzipan, in French is known as massepain, clearly influenced by the French word ‘pain’, meaning ‘bread’. Of course, this isn’t bready or even glutenous. Indeed, the fact that lots of European languages words for it has a [p] is due to this association, but it probably came via Arabic which doesn’t even have the [p] sound, and the word was Arabic مَرْطَبَان (martaban), though here it meant ‘spice box’. This in turn comes from the name of a Burmese port of the same name, Martaban, now known as မုတ္ထမ (muthta'ma) which was a famous port for spices. 

While this all would give a reason for the name and sound changes along the way, it’s actually not really clear. The meaning change from Arabic into European languages, first introduced into Venetian by their merchants, is surprising, especially as it is made almost entirely of almonds, not spices. However that is not the only place the sense of 'box' comes in with this etymology. 

Another theory focuses more on the Italian 'marzapane', meaning "candy box" (probably), from Medieval Latin 'matapanus', which referred to a coin with various religious iconography, including a depiction of St. Mark. The exact origin of the Latin word is uncertain, though it was altered in Italian through folk etymology to resemble "Marci panis," meaning "bread of Mark". There is also a theory, or really an extension to this same theory, suggesting a link to the Arabic مَثْبَن‎ (mawthaban), meaning "king who sits still", but between the two theories covered here, that step is the least widely accepted.