The story
- Arabic · derived fromمُتَصَرِّف“autonomous one, governor of a province”
- Ottoman Turkish · borrowed fromمتصرف“governor of a sanjak”
- English todaymutasarrif
From Ottoman Turkish متصرف (mutasarrıf, “governor of a sanjak”) (modern Turkish mutasarrıf), from Arabic مُتَصَرِّف (mutaṣarrif, “autonomous one, governor of a province”), from تَصَرَّفَ (taṣarrafa, “to act, to act independently”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.