Sesame - Etymology

Etymology

The word sesame is from Latin sesamum, borrowed from Greek sésamon "seed or fruit of the sesame plant", borrowed from Semitic (cf. Hebrew shumshum, Arabic simsim, Aramaic shūmshĕmā), from Late Babylonian *shawash-shammu, itself from Assyrian shamash-shammū, from shaman shammī "plant oil".

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From all the 3 roots above, words with the generalized meaning “oil, liquid fat” are derived, e.g., Sanskrit taila . Similar semantic shifts from the name of an oil crop to a general word “fat, oil” are also known for other languages, e.g., “olive” has given rise to English “oil”.

In some languages of the Middle East, sesame is named differently and evolved from Middle Persian kunjid. This has also been borrowed into other languages — e.g., Russian kunzhut and Yiddish kunzhut .

Brazilian Portuguese gergelim, Spanish ajonjolí, and Hindi gingli derive from an Arabic noun jaljala “sound, echo”, referring to the rattling sound of ripe seeds within the capsule.

In the Southern US and the Caribbean, where a form of the sesame seed was introduced by African slaves, it is known under the name benne (variously spelled benné, bene, beni, benni, benny) representing Wolof or Mande bene.

Upon ripening, sesame fruit capsules split, releasing the seeds with a pop. It has been suggested that this is root of the phrase "Open Sesame" in the historic fable of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves in One Thousand and One Nights. The opening of the capsule releases the treasure of sesame seeds.