Sarʹacens

Ducange derives this word from Sarah (Abraham’s wife); Hottinger from the Arabic saraca (to steal); Forster from sahra (a desert); but probably it is the Arabic sharakyoun or sharkeyn (the eastern people), as opposed to Magʹharibë (the western people—i.e. of Morocco). Any unbaptised person was called a Saracen in mediæval romance. (Greek, Suralkēnos.)

“So the Arabs, or Saracens, as they are called … gave men the choice of three things.”—E. A. Freeman: General Sketch, chap. vi. p. 117.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

Sarʹacens

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