zambra, a Moorish festival, with music and dancing; a festive dance. Dryden, Conquest of Granada, I, i. 1 (l. 11 from end). Span. zambra, ‘a Moorish dance’ (Stevens). ‘A la rigueur zambra signifie musique d’instruments à vent; on l’a appliqué à la danse parce que l’on danse au son des larigots et des flûtes’ (Cobarruvias). Zambra is from the Arabic root zamara, to play on a wind instrument, Dozy, Glossaire, 364.
zany, a subordinate buffoon, who mimicked the clown. Twelfth Nt. i. 5. 96; cp. L. L. L. v. 2. 463. Ital. ‘záne, the name of John in some parts of Lombardy, but commonly used for a silly John, a simple gull, or foolish Clown in a Play or Comedy, as a Jack pudding at the dancing of the ropes’ (Florio). See Stanford.
zany, to imitate apishly, to mimic. Fletcher, Queen of Corinth, i. 2 (Crates); Lover’s Progress, i. 1 (Clarinda).
zecchine, a gold coin, a ‘sequin’. Shirley, Gent. of Venice, i. 1 (Cornari); Gascoigne, ed. Hazlitt, i. 79. Ital. zecchino, a Venetian coin, deriv. of zecca, ‘a mint or place of coyning’ (Florio), Arab. sikka, coin; dâr as-sikka-t, a mint (Steingass).
zelant, a zealot. Bacon, Essay 3. Med. L. zelans; see Ducange (s.v. Zelare).
zelatour, a zealot, Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. iii, ch. 27. Med. L. zelator, ‘aemulator, inimicus’ (Ducange).
zernick, orpiment. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Surly). Arab. zernîkh, arsenic (Steingass), Pers. zernīχ, orpiment, yellow arsenic; from zar, gold. A word of Indo-European origin. See Academy (May 11, 1895, p. 427), and Horn’s Grundriss der neupersischen Etymologie (1893, § 691).
OXFORD: HORACE HART M.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY