My own opinion is, that the reverse is the case--that the Latin is merely a
corruption of the Arabic; and that the Latins, in adopting the word,
naturally gave it the slight alteration which rendered the Arabic word, to
them unmeaning, appropriately significant of the nature of the fruit.
I find that in various languages the word strolls thus in the Latin of the
middle age, _avercoccius_--in the modern Greek, [Greek: berykokkion]--in
the Italian, _albercocco_, _albicocca_--in the Spanish, _albaricoque_--and
all these various words, undeducible from the Latin _praecox_, are readily
derivable from the Arabic word, the prefix _al_, which is merely the
article, being in some cases dropped, and in others retained.
I may add, as a curious fact, that, in the south of Italy, of which I am a
native, the common people call the apricot _verricocca_, and _the peach_
_precucco_, although the former ripen _earlier_ than the latter.
A.P. DI PIO, Italo-Graecos.
Carlisle.
_"Plurima gemma latet caeca tellure sepulta"_ (Vol. ii., p.133.).--In the
course of my reading, some time back, I met with a passage which was given
as quotation from Bishop Hall.
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