Etymology: < (i) German Marzipan (1510 as marczapan , 1521 as martzepan , a1541 as marcipan ), or its etymon Italian (ii) marzapane marzipan (in a text by B. Pegolotti, composed a1343 but known only from a manuscript of 1471), perhaps < Persian martabān , marṭabān or Arabic marṭabān (see Martaban n.). The city of Martaban was famous for the glazed jars it exported, containing preserves and sweetmeats; the transition of sense would therefore be from the container to the thing contained: compare Italian marzapane a container of a certain capacity (13th-14th cent. in Venetian documents), post-classical Latin maczapanum jewel-box (1347 in an Occitan source), massapanum reliquary (1399), Spanish mazapán casket (1373), Middle French massepain casket for confectionery (1449). Forms of the name of the sweetmeat in other European languages are probably directly or indirectly from Italian: compare Middle Dutch marcepen (1486; Dutch marsepein), post-classical Latin mazapanis (c1492), Portuguese maçapão (1521), Spanish mazapán (1525), Swedish marsipan (1538), Middle French, French massepain (1546; 1544 as marcepain, 1545 as massepan).The Italian or German word was earlier borrowed into English as marchpane n., and this was the usual form in English from the 16th to the 19th centuries. In the 19th cent. apparently reborrowed < Italian (see especially quots. 1846 at sense A. 1bα. and 1866 at sense A. 1aα. ). Italian marzapane has been derived (originally by Kluyver 1904, in Zeitschr. f. Deutsche Wortforschung 6 59–68) < Italian regional (Venice) matapan , the name of a coin struck between 1193 and the 15th cent., and associated with post-classical Latin marzapanus a kind of money or tax (1202, in one isolated attestation from a Syrian source). The supposed transition of sense would be from monetary unit to unit of measurement to container to thing contained, but the derivation is (especially on phonological grounds) very uncertain. Equally tenuous is the connection between the name of the coin and Yemeni Arabic mawṯabān one who remains seated ( < Yemeni Arabic waṯaba be seated), supposedly the name of a European coin depicting Christ enthroned. Another theory (see e.g. J. Corominas Diccionario crítico etimológico de la lengua castellana (1954)), also tenuous, derives Italian marzapane < Arabic maḵšabān , a hapax legomenon in an apparently now lost section of the unique manuscript of the poetry of Ibn Quzmān (12th cent.), interpreted as ‘a sweetmeat, a wooden box’ ( < ḵašab wood; the transition of sense in Arabic, as with the derivation < Martaban , would therefore be from the container to the thing contained). The view preferred here was propounded by G. R. Cardona ( Lingua nostra (1969) 30 34ff.) and G. B. Pellegrini ( Lingua nostra (1976) 37 92). For Italian -z- from Arabic -ṭ- Pellegrini adduces the analogous example of Spanish mazmorra ‘prison’ < Arabic maṭmūra . Post-classical Latin and Romance forms without -r- may be influenced by classical Latin massa , Spanish masa , Portuguese massa mass, dough (see masa n.). The second element of the word may be influenced by Italian pane , Spanish pan , French pain , classical Latin pānis bread (see pain n.²).

Etymology: < marzipan n.