Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.543

c10.543

**ARSENAL**, s. An old and ingenious etymology of this word is *arx navalis*. But it is really Arabic. Hyde derives it from *tars-khānah*, 'domus terroris,' contracted into *tarsānah*, the form (as he says) used at Constantinople (*Syntagma Dissert.*, i. 100). But it is really the Ar. *dār-al-ṣinā'a*, 'domus artificii,' as the quotations from Mas'ūdī clearly show. The old Ital. forms *darsena*, *darsinale* corroborate this, and the Sp. *ataraçana*, which is rendered in Ar. by Pedro de Alcala, quoted by Dozy, as *dār a cināa*.—(See details in Dozy, *Oosterlingen*, 16-18.)