Sesame

How to spell sesame

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce sesame

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sesame mean?

1. nounA tropical plant grown for its small flat edible seeds, or the seeds themselves, often used in cooking and to make oil.

Sesame in a sentence

• The baker sprinkled sesame seeds over the fresh rolls.

• A spoonful of toasted sesame adds a nutty flavour to the salad.

Where does sesame come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Sesame is the name of a tropical plant and its small edible seeds, and the word reached English through Latin sesamum from Greek sēsamon. The Greeks themselves borrowed it from a Semitic source, where forms like Aramaic shumshema and Akkadian shamashshammu (roughly 'oil plant' or 'oil seed') describe one of the oldest cultivated oil crops in the world. Because the word travelled across several languages, its spelling settled into a deceptively even pattern of three syllables, each built around an 's' and a vowel. English has used the word since at least the 1400s, originally for the seed prized in cooking and for its oil. The phrase 'open sesame', the magic password from the tale of Ali Baba in the Arabian Nights, kept the word familiar long after the plant itself became a kitchen staple, and that repeating se-sa-me rhythm is exactly what trips writers who want to add or drop a vowel.

How the word is built

• sesam- (the plant/seed, from Greek sēsamon)
• -e (English spelling ending)