arak

plural araks · alternative araq · alternative arrack · alternative rack

1. uncountableusuallyA clear, unsweetened aniseed-flavoured alcoholic drink, produced and consumed primarily in the Levant.

   My wife is Jordanian and has family who have lived and worked in Dubai and Abu Dhabi for years. During our time in the U.A.E., we ate with them, drank arak, watched them dance the dabke late into the evening.

   2026 March 16, Richard Florida, “Could This Be the End of Dubai?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   2 more examples

   A rite of the grape harvest in the Christian villages dotting the Lebanon mountain range[…] is the perfectly legal distillation of homemade arak. This smooth, cool, refreshing liquor, tasting of licorice with a soupçon of peppermint, remains the staple drink at Sunday lunch, an eat-till-you-drop extravaganza of small meze dishes.

   2005 January 25, “The return of arak”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   In Lebanon they have arak, in Turkey raki, and they even make something similar in Saudi Arabia. This is not so surprising as the Arabs were probably the first people to distil alcohol; alcohol is an Arabic word. “Arak” means “sweat” in Arabic, and describes the distillation process rather than what happens when you drink too much.

   2015 February 6, Henry Jeffreys, “How to enjoy ouzo, even when you’re not on holiday”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

2. alternativeuncountableusuallyAlternative spelling of arrack (an alcoholic drink distilled from coconut palm flowers or sugar cane)

plural araks

1. uncountableusuallyA toothbrush tree (Salvadora persica).

   They use perfume freely, paint their eyes with kohl, and are constantly polishing their teeth with twigs of green arak-wood.

   1958-1994, Hamilton Gibb & CF Beckingham, in The Travels of Ibn Battutah, Folio Society 2012, p. 51

alternative Arâk

1. A city in Iran, the seat of Arak County's Central District and the capital of Markazi Province, formerly called Soltanabad.
2. A county of Iran, around the city.