Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·South Asia ·1570s (imperial), 1920s (modern sense)
Mogul
from muġl
- Meaning
- A powerful business figure; originally, a Mughal emperor.
- Source word
- muġl
- Route into English
- Persian/Arabic *muġl* (Mongol, cf. Mughal dynasty) → English. The transferred sense ("movie mogul," "media mogul") emerges in early 20th-century American journalism from the imperial association.
- Arrived
- 1570s (imperial), 1920s (modern sense)
From South Asia
Three centuries of British colonial contact — East India Company, Raj, military, domestic life — deposited a distinct Hindi/Urdu/Bengali/Sanskrit layer in everyday English.
English borrows.
Browse the full loanword atlas or explore another source language.