What do artichoke and sofa have in common?

Yes, we can sit on a sofa to eat an artichoke, or as in the picture, have an artichoke painting above a sofa, but there is another relationship between those two words, and we have to study their etymology to discover it.

Sofa comes from the Arabic word صفة (pronounced súffa and meaning long seat made of stone of brick). It seems that the word found its way to Europe through Turkish or the Moorish occupation of Spain.

Artichoke also comes from Arabic, more precisely القرشوف (pronounced al-qaršūf, and strangely meaning artichoke)!

There are a lot more English words coming from Arabic including algebra, apricot, caravan, jar and sherbet!