Teaser
albino, auburn, daub, oaf, elf, Alfred, Oberon, Elbe, Arpad, Alps
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Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰós white
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Anatolian *albós
- Hittite 𒀠𒉺𒀸 alpas cloud
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Hellenic *alpʰós
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Classical Greek ἀλφός alphós alphos, leprosy with white lesions
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Latin alphos
- English alphos
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Italic *alβos white
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Latin albus white, bright, pale, gray, fortunate
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Central Romance
- Dalmatian jualb white
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Eastern Romance
- Romanian alb white, clean
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Old English albe white robe worn by priests, alb
- English alb
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Spanish albo white
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Spanish albino albino
- English albino
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Vulgar Latin *albidiare to whiten, to dawn
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Central Romance
- Italian albeggiàre to turn white, to dawn
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Western Romance
- Spanish albear to whiten
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Vulgar Latin *alba dawn, sunrise
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Central Romance
- Italian alba dawn, sunrise
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Western Romance
- French aube dawn, sunrise, beginning
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Occitan alba dawn
- English alba
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Spanish alba dawn
- Spanish albada
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Vulgar Latin *albidiare to whiten, to dawn
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Central Romance
- Italian albeggiàre to turn white, to dawn
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Western Romance
- Spanish albear to whiten
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Latin album whiteness, a blank tablet, a list or register, egg white (albumen)
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English album
- English White Album
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Latin albūmen egg white (albumen)
- English albumen
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Latin albor whiteness, egg white (albumen), first light, dawn
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Central Romance
- Italian albore glimmer, first light, dawn
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Insular Romance
- Sardinian arbore
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Eastern Romance
- Romanian alboare glimmer, radiance
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Western Romance
- Old French aubour
- Spanish albor whiteness, first light, dawn
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Vulgar Latin *albaster whitish [1]
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Eastern Romance
- Romanian albastru blue, sky-blue
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Vulgar Latin *albasterellus
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Central Romance
- Italian albastrello marsh sandpiper
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Latin albēdō white, whiteness
- English albedo
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Latin albūgō albugo, leucoma
- English albugo
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Latin alburnum alburnum, sapwood
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Central Romance
- Italian alburno
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Western Romance
- Spanish alburno
- English alburnum
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Latin alburnus whitish
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Western Romance
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Old French auborne blond, off-white
- English auburn
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Latin albō I whiten, I make white
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Latin dealbō I whitewash, I plaster, I purify "whiten thoroughly"
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Western Romance
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Old French dauber
- English daub
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Latin exalbō
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Central Romance
- Italian scialbare
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Latin inalbō
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Central Romance
- Italian inalbare
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Umbrian 𐌀𐌋𐌚𐌖 alfu white
- Byzantine Greek ἄλβος álbos white
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Unknown
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Finnic *kalbas
- Finnish kalvas pale
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Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰyos whitish
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Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰi-
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Proto-Indo-European *h₂ólbʰis white one, the white
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Germanic *albiz elf
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North Germanic *albiʀ
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Old Norse alfr elf
- Danish alf fairy, elf learned borrowing
- Icelandic álfur elf, fool
- English oaf
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West Germanic *albi
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Old English ælf
- English elf
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Frankish *alf
- Dutch alf elf
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Old High German alb
- German Alb elf, nightmare
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Germanic *Albigaizaz personal name: Elf-Spear
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North Germanic
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Old Norse Álfgeirr
- Icelandic Álfgeir
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West Germanic
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Old English Ælfgār
- English Elgar
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- Germanic *Albigastiz personal name: Elf-Guest, Elf-Stranger or possibly *Albigaistaz: "Elf-Ghost"
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West Germanic
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Old High German
- German Elbegast
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Frankish
- Dutch Elegast
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Germanic *Albiharjaz personal name: Elf-Warrior
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North Germanic
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Old Norse Álfarr
- Swedish Alvar
- Icelandic Álfar
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West Germanic
- Old English Ælfhere
- Old Saxon Alfheri
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Spanish Álvaro [3]
- Spanish Álvarez
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Germanic *Albihildiz personal name: Elf-Battle
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North Germanic
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Old Norse Alfhildr
- Swedish Alfhild
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Germanic *Albirēdaz personal name: Elf-Counsel
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West Germanic
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Old English Ælfrēd
- English Alfred
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Germanic *Albirīks personal name: Elf-King
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West Germanic
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Old English Ælfric
- English Elric
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Old High German Alberih
- German Alberich
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Old French Alberon
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Middle English Auberon
- English Oberon
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French Aubrey
- English Aubrey
- English Avery
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Lombardic
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Italian Alberico
- Italian Alberici
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Germanic *Albiwiniz personal name: Elf-Friend
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West Germanic
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Old English Ælfwine
- English Alvin
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Old High German Albewini
- Lombardic Alboin
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Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰih₂
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Germanic *albī river
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North Germanic
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Old Norse elfr river
- Danish elv river
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Icelandic elfur river
- Icelandic Saxelfur the Elbe lit. "Saxon river"
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West Germanic *albī river, the River, the Elbe
- Old English Ælf the Elbe
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Old High German Elba the Elbe
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German Elbe
- English Elbe
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Latin Albis the Elbe
- Classical Greek Ἄλβις Álbis the Elbe
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Slavic *olba the Elbe
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East Slavic
- Russian Ла́ба Lába the Elbe
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South Slavic
- Serbo-Croatian Лаба Laba the Elbe
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West Slavic
- Polish Łaba the Elbe
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Proto-Indo-European *h₂élbʰi(t) barley, barley-flour
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Pre-Albanian *albi
- Albanian elb barley
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Hellenic *álpʰi(t)
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Classical Greek ἄλφι alphi flour, barley flour
- Classical Greek ἄλφιτον álphiton barley flour, barley groats, meal, groats
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Proto-Indo-European *h₂l̥bʰés barley, barley-flour
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Indo-Iranian *Hr̥pā́ćš
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Iranian *Hr̥pacáh barley
- Pashto وربشی ōrbaše barley
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Northern Iranian
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Turkic *arpa barley
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Oghur
- Chuvash урпа urpa barley
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Common Turkic *arpa
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Oghuz
- Turkish arpa barley
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Karluk
- Uyghur ئارپا arpa barley
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Kipchak
- Kazakh арпа arpa barley
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Siberian Turkic
- Old Turkic 𐰀𐰼𐰯𐰀 arpa barley
- Shor арба arba barley
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Hungarian árpa barley
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Hungarian Árpád personal name: Little Barley
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English Arpad
- English Arpadian
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- Manchu ᠠᡵᡶᠠ arfa naked oat
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Mongolic *arbaï
- Mongolian ᠠᠷᠪᠠᠢ arvaj barley, a horse breed
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Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰᶤyō
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Celtic *albiyū the upper world (not underworld), the lit world, high mountains, the Alps, Britain oblique stem *albiyon-
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Brythonic *ėlβɨð the world
- Welsh elfydd earth
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Hispano-Celtic
- Latin Albionēs
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Old Irish Albu Scotland
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Irish Alba Scotland archaic
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Irish Albain Scotland originally dative, "to Scotland"
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Medieval Latin Albania Scotland
- English Albany
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West Germanic *albijā
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Old High German alba Alp, mountainous area, highland
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Old High German alpen the Alps plural
- German Alpen
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Classical Greek Ἀλβίων Albíōn Brittain
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Latin Albion
- English Albion
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Latin Alpēs
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French Alpes
- English Alps
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Latin Alpīnus
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Central Romance
- Italian alpino alpine, Alpine
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Western Romance
- French alpin alpine, Alpine
- Spanish alpino alpine, Alpine
- English alpine
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Latin Albānus an Albanian [4]
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Byzantine Greek Ἀλβανός Albānós an Albanian
- Greek Αλβανός Alvanós an Albanian
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Byzantine Greek Ἀλβανία Albaníā Albania
- Greek Αλβανία Alvanía Albania
- English Albania
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Illyrian [4]
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Classical Greek Ἀλβᾱνός [4]
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Byzantine Greek Ἀλβανός Albānós an Albanian
- Greek Αλβανός Alvanós an Albanian
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Byzantine Greek Ἀλβανία Albaníā Albania
- Greek Αλβανία Alvanía Albania
- English Albania
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Latin Albānus an Albanian [4]
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Byzantine Greek Ἀλβανός Albānós an Albanian
- Greek Αλβανός Alvanós an Albanian
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Byzantine Greek Ἀλβανία Albaníā Albania
- Greek Αλβανία Alvanía Albania
- English Albania
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Albanian arbën an Albanian [4]
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Greek αρβανός arvanós an Albanian
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Bulgarian арбанаш arbanaš
- Romanian arbănaș Albanian
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- Albanian Labëria [4]
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Visual
Collected English words
alphos, alb, albino, alba, album, White Album, albumen, albedo, albugo, alburnum, auburn, daub, Alfeios, Alpheus, Alph, oaf, elf, Elgar, Alfred, Elric, Oberon, Aubrey, Avery, Alvin, Elbe, Arpad, Arpadian, Albany, Albion, Alps, alpine, Albania
Footnotes
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Oddly, Vulgar Latin *albaster: "whitish" is the not the origin of "alabaster", despite the phonological and semantic resemblance. Latin "alabaster" comes from Classical Greek ἀλάβαστος alábastos: "a vase of alabaster" (and its variant ἀλάβαστρος alábastros). Though the specific form of the Latin borrowing alabaster from Greek was probably influenced by the Latin suffix -aster.
In the 1930s, Egyptologist Kurt Sethe derived "alabaster" from ꜥj-r-bꜣstjt / a-labaste: "bowl of Bastet". In the 1960s Gerhard Fecht proposed jnr-bꜣstjt / ana-baste: "stone of Bastet". But as far as I know, neither of those phrases are attested in Egyptian.
The name bꜣstjt (Bastet) has been linked to bꜣs: "jar", but that's a much later association, and it's probably not the real etymology of her name. bꜣs may or may not have a link to alabaster, but it's unlikely to be through Bastet.
It's also been suggested that Greek ἀλάβαστος alábastos comes from a place name in Egypt that alabaster was imported from. This is based on Pliny's _Naturalis historia_ and Ptolemy's _Geographia_.
Pliny lists a city he calls Alabastron, and Ptolemy has one likewise (though in a different place) and Ptolemy also lists the Alabastrites Mountains. Pliny discusses the stone alabastrites in Book 36 and says it comes from two places: near Thebes and near Damascus (with Damascus being the better quality) but does not connect it to the place Alabastron he mentioned in Book 5.
It's worth noting that Pliny and Ptolemy are writing hundreds of years after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander, and the names they give are not Egyptian names but Greek names which only sometimes have anything to do with Egyptian names for the same places. While the Greeks were almost certainly getting alabaster from the places they called Alabastron and Mons Alabastrites, it seems more likely they named the place(s) after the material instead of vice versa!
More recently a comparison has been made to Arabic علبة ʿulba/ʿalaba: "box, trunk, can", though to be from an obsolete similar word for a kind of palm tree that was used for making boxes; the palm tree is also attested in Akkadian as 𒀀𒆷𒈪𒌅 alabattu: "a kind of palm-tree".
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From Classical Greek Ἀλφειός Alpheiós: "the river Alfeios and its associated divinity", the real world river in the modern day is generally called Alfeios in English; and the river god and the mythical version of the river are usually Alpheus. Coleridge anglicized the name as "Alph". The Alfeios river runs through the karst topography of Peloponnesus, disappearing into the ground and re-emerging somewhere else. Thus the literary/mythical versions of the river as a river in Hades, or as flowing under the sea to emerge in Siciliy, or running "through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea."
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The exact derivation of Spanish Álvaro is hard to pin down.
It could be from Gothic. Many Germanic names in Spanish come through Visigothic during the time of the Visigothic kingdom in Iberia; but there is no evidence of the word *albiz in East Germanic, it may be an innovative word in Northwest Germanic after the split from East Germanic.
It could come through a Frankish -> Old Occitan -> Spanish or Lombardic -> Old Occitan -> Spanish path. If so, we would expect to see the name used in French and/or Italian, but not necessarily.
It could be from a different Germanic bithematic name (through any of those paths): *Allawardō or *Aþalawardō for example (All-Guard, Noble-Guard).
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The relationship between Classical Greek Ἀλβᾱνός, Latin Albānus, and Albanian arbën and Albanian Labëria is obscure and complicated. They may or may not all be related. Each one may or may not be from one or more of Latin alba, Celtic *albiyon-, and/or an Illyrian word which may or may not be cognate to either of those.