Etymology

Tajik

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Today it means: A member of the Persian-speaking people living mainly in Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Full definition →

Classical Persian تاجیک ← Middle Persian tʾcyk' ← Arabic طَيِّئ
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The story

  1. Arabic · derived fromطَيِّئ“name of an Arab clan”
  2. Middle Persian · derived fromtʾcyk'“Arab”
  3. Classical Persian · derived fromتاجیک“non-Turk (of Central Asia)”
  4. English todayTajik

From Classical Persian تاجیک (tājīk, “non-Turk (of Central Asia)”) (akin to تازی (tāzī), تازیک (tāzīk)), (ultimately) from Middle Persian tʾcyk' (tāzīg, “Arab”), (ultimately) from Arabic طَيِّئ (ṭayyiʔ, “name of an Arab clan”). See Tayy. Popular folk etymology traces the word to Tajik тоҷ (toj, “crown”) (see Arabic تَاج (tāj), from Persian تاج (tâj, “crown”)), but this is false.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.