The story
- Middle Dutch · borrowed fromBoompjes Hoeck
- English todayBombay Hook
Borrowed from Middle Dutch Boompjes Hoeck (modern Dutch Boompjes Hoek, literally “Little-tree Hook”). Spelling influenced by, and thus remodeled after, Bombay (“historical name of Mumbai”) + hook (“a curve”), and thus also inadvertently a partial calque from Middle Dutch.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.