This article is concerned with loanwords, that is, words in English that derive from Persian, either directly, or more often, from one or more intermediary languages.
Many words of Persian origin have made their way into the English language through different, often circuitous, routes.
Iran (Persia) remained largely impenetrable to English-speaking travelers well into the 19th century.
Thus many words in the list below, though originally from Persian, arrived in English through the intermediary of Ottoman Turkish language.
Other words of Persian origin found their way into European languages—and eventually reached English at second-hand—through the Moorish-Christian cultural interface in the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages thus being transmitted through Arabic.