Etymology

Nabataean

Na·ba·tae·an
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Today it means: The ancient inhabitants of Nabataea, a region of Arabia inhabited by the Nabataeans that covers parts of northern Arabia and the Southern Levant, lying between Arabia and Syria, and stretching from the Euphrates river to the Red Sea. During the Hellenistic Period, the Nabataeans were involved in a nexus of trade routes reaching as far as Italy to the west and India to the east, which centered at their city of Petra in what is now Western Jordan near the Negev Desert from before 310 BCE until the Roman conquest in 106 CE. Full definition →

Latin Nabataeus ← Ancient Greek Ναβαταῖος ← arc-nab 𐢕𐢃𐢋𐢈
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The story

  1. arc-nab · derived from𐢕𐢃𐢋𐢈“Nabataean”
  2. Ancient Greek · derived fromΝαβαταῖος“Nabataean”
  3. Latin · derived fromNabataeus“Nabataean”
  4. English todayNabataean

Borrowed from Latin Nabataeus (“Nabataean”), which was borrowed from Ancient Greek Ναβαταῖος (Nabataîos, “Nabataean”), which was borrowed from Nabataean Aramaic 𐢕𐢃𐢋𐢈 (nbṭw, “Nabataean”). Possibly cognate with Arabic نَبَطِيّ (nabaṭiyy, “Nabataean, Nabaṭ”), Arabic أَنْبَاط (ʔanbāṭ), and Hebrew נבטים (nabaṭim, “Nabataeans”), and Hebrew נבטית (nabaṭit, “Nabataean (adj.)”), all of which might be ultimately derived from the same Semitic root, perhaps Proto-Semitic *nabat-, possibly cognate with Akkadian nabāṭu ("to shine brightly").

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.