[French mosquée, from Middle French mousquaie, from Old Italian moschea, variant of moscheta, alteration (possibly with influence from Old Italian mosco, musk, in reference to the perfuming of mosques with musk and the mixing of musk into the mortar used to build them) of meschita, from Old Spanish mezquita and Medieval Latin mezquita, from early Arabic (possibly Yemeni dialectal) masgida (attested in early Arabic documents written in the Greek alphabet; compare classical Arabic masjid and Berber tamasgida, mosque, an early borrowing from Arabic), from Aramaic masgədā, definite form (with -ā, suffixed definite article) of *masgid, place of worship, altar; see MASJID.]