Etymology

saxaul

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Today it means: Either of two species of the amaranth genus Haloxylon: Haloxylon ammodendron (syn. Haloxylon aphyllum; black saxaul) and Haloxylon persicum (white saxaul), found in sandy habitats from Egypt to Mongolia and China. Full definition →

Russian саксау́л ← Turkic ← xal
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The story

  1. xal · derived from“a bush growing in the desert”
  2. Turkic · derived from
  3. Russian · borrowed fromсаксау́л
  4. English todaysaxaul

Borrowed from Russian саксау́л (saksaúl), via a Turkic variety (compare Bashkir саҡсауыл (saqsawıl), Kazakh сексеуіл (seksewil)), ultimately from Kalmyk [script needed] (zaɣzāml̥, “a bush growing in the desert”), compare Mongolian заг (zag, “saxaul”), Kalmyk за (za).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.