Etymology

zakat

za·kat
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Today it means: Almsgiving, usually in the form of an annual tax on certain types of property which is then used for charitable purposes; the third of the five pillars of Islam. Full definition →

Persian زکات ← Turkish zekât ← Ottoman Turkish زكات
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The story

  1. Aramaic · derived fromזכותא
  2. Arabic · derived fromزَكَاة“almsgiving, zakat; purification”
  3. Urdu · borrowed fromزَکَات
  4. Ottoman Turkish · derived fromزكات
  5. Turkish · borrowed fromzekât
  6. Persian · borrowed fromزکات
  7. English todayzakat

Borrowed from: * Persian زکات (zakât); * Turkish zekât, from Ottoman Turkish زكات (zekat); or * Urdu زَکَات (zakāt); all from Arabic زَكَاة (zakāh, “almsgiving, zakat; purification”), from زَكَوٰة (zakāh) (archaic), from Aramaic זכותא/ܙܟܘܬܐ (zākūṯā, “goodness, probity, uprightness; merit; victory”), from זכי (zəḵē, “to gain; to overcome, triumph over”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.