mistic
English
Etymology
From Spanish místico. Compare Catalan místic, French mistique, Italian mistico, and Ottoman Turkish مستقو (mistiko). These all refer to sailing ships of the Mediterranean, but not necessarily to the same kind of ship. The number of masts is variously two or three and the sails are lateen or square. The New English Dictionary[1] traces the origin to an Arabic word misṭeḥ "flat surface" (compare مُسَطَّح (musaṭṭaḥ)) but Kahane et al.[2] disagree.
Noun
mistic (plural mistics)
- A kind of small sailing vessel used in the Mediterranean, rigged partly like a xebec and partly like a felucca.
Synonyms
References
- James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “Mistic”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volumes VI, Part 2 (M–N), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 538, column 3.
- Kahane, Henry R., Kahane, Renée, Tietze, Andreas (1958) The Lingua Franca in the Levant: Turkish Nautical Terms of Italian and Greek Origin, Urbana: University of Illinois
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “mistic”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)
Occitan
Pronunciation
Audio (Béarn) (file)
Related terms
Romanian
Adjective
mistic m or n (feminine singular mistică, masculine plural mistici, feminine and neuter plural mistice)