Historical Dictionary of Ottoman Turkish Terms for Gardens and Gardening

Introduction

Adapted from the 2007 original introduction by Yücel Dağlı

The “Historical Dictionary of Ottoman Turkish Terms for Gardens and Gardening” includes over 12,000 entries, entirely in Turkish, related to the following:

• Plant names
• Trees, and, locations where they are found
• Decorative and wild flowers
• Parts and components of plants
• Botanical terms for fruits, vegetables, and fungi
• Herbal remedies and their associated illnesses
• Role of plants in technology
• Names of insects and plant diseases directly related to plants and gardens
• Gardening terminology
• Garden tools
• Geographical terms related to garden and plants in geographical dictionaries
• Terms related to gardens found in myths
• Definition of gardens found in religious books
• Plant and garden symbolism in dream interpretations
• Terms found in art related to plants, flowers and gardens
• Legal terms related to trees, plants, gardens and fields

Not included in the dictionary are the following:

• Names of planting layouts
• Plants in literature are not particularly included in our search within the dictionaries. However from time to time some explanations are provided for the ones frequently used in literature.
• Use of plants in medicine, names of therapeutic drugs, prescriptions, or recipes
• Seaweeds
• Aphorisms related to plants
• Metaphorical meanings or meanings not related to our field, e.g., slang

This work is based on the “Turkish Language Institution Dictionary,” and synonyms to a particular entry found elsewhere are given after the entry even if the definition is the same, in order to show that it does not appear in one dictionary only. Sources are indicated by a parenthetical acronym at the end of each entry. A key may be found at the beginning of the downloadable PDF.

However, not all the information found in source dictionaries has been imported. Neither etymology, nor gender, nor word root are indicated. Scholars who need them should search the abbreviation of the source they want to consult in the list of sources. Whenever several meanings are given for a particular entry in a source dictionary, only meanings related to plants and gardens are included and, whenever necessary, the entries are renumbered.

Synonyms or names with very similar spellings (one or two letter differences for the same plant) are placed together in the same entry. Names of plants formed by compound nouns are variously combined, separated, or hyphenated, according to the writers’ preferences. In this dictionary, the common usage in source dictionaries is followed.

Please note that the form of the dictionary available here for download is based on the version available on the original project website as of October 1, 2014. Original errors have been retained.

Dağlı, Yücel, ed. 2014. Historical Dictionary of Ottoman Turkish Terms for Gardens and Gardening. Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University.

Dumbarton Oaks.