“Pity you was not druggerman at Babel”.
‘Truckman’, or more commonly ‘truchman’, familiar to all readers of our early literature, is only another form of this, one which probably has come to us through ‘turcimanno’, the Italian form of the word. [See my Folk and their Word-Lore, p. 19].
[7] [‘Tulip’, at first spelt tulipan, is really the same word as turban (tulipant just above), which the flower was thought to resemble (Persian dulband).]
[8] [Ultimately from the Arabic zabād (N.E.D.).]
[9] [Apparently to be traced to the Persian shim-shír or sham-shír (“lion’s-nail”), a crooked sword (Skeat).]
[10] [Rather through the French from low Latin satinus or setinus, a fabric made of seta, silk. But Yule holds that it may be from Zayton or Zaitun (in Fokien, China), an important emporium of Western trade in the Middle Ages (Hobson-Jobson, 602).]
[11] [Probably intended for cacao, which is Mexican. Cocoa, the nut, is from Portuguese coco.]
[12] See Washington Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus, b. 8, c. 9.
[13] [It is from the Haytian Hurakan, the storm-god (The Folk and their Word-Lore, 90).]
[14] [From old Russian mammot, whence modern Russian mamant.]