The story
- Spanish · borrowed frommístico
- English todaymistic
From Spanish místico. Compare Catalan místic, French mistique, Italian mistico, and Ottoman Turkish مستقو (mistiko). These all refer to sailing ships of the Mediterranean, but not necessarily to the same kind of ship. The number of masts is variously two or three and the sails are lateen or square. The New English Dictionary traces the origin to an Arabic word misṭeḥ "flat surface" (compare مُسَطَّح (musaṭṭaḥ)) but Kahane et al. disagree.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.