zamsz

Polish

Etymology

Borrowed from Czech zámiš, from Middle High German samisch, later sämisch, from Middle French chamois, identical to the animal name chamois; in this understanding also Spanish gamuza and Portuguese camurça use the same word for the caprine and for the hide.

Discarded derivations

Note that a lot of false etymologies circulate about this fabric's name:

• derived from Turkic, Turkish semiz (“fat”), due to the use of fish oil in tanning, allegedly via Arabic dialects, also linking via شَحْم (šaḥm) and سَمْن (samn, “fat”) which are completely unrelated to the Turkic word;
• in German sources, it is often alleged on the basis of the spellings to have come from Middle Dutch; a corrupt version of this story derives the word from Dutch seem (“*soft, *weich”) which is not known in Dutch;
• the similarity in Kazakh referring to shammy, apart from күдері (küderı) by жұмсақ тері (jūmsaq terı, literally “soft leather”), is a coincidence;
• a rarer, baseless claim derives the word from Sambia in Eastern Prussia;
• some have considered a Slavic origin, though the Slavic words postdate the German attestations and even more so the Romance ones, and Slavic internal derivations, if attempted, are vagary, such as connecting the word with замше́ть (zamšétʹ, “to become mossy”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈzamʂ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -amʂ
• Syllabification: zamsz

Noun

zamsz m inan

1. suede

Declension

Declension of zamsz

	singular	plural
nominative	zamsz	zamsze
genitive	zamszu	zamszów
dative	zamszowi	zamszom
accusative	zamsz	zamsze
instrumental	zamszem	zamszami
locative	zamszu	zamszach
vocative	zamszu	zamsze

Derived terms

adjective

• zamszowy

 

Descendants

• → Israeli Hebrew: זמש (zamš)
• → Russian: за́мша (zámša), замш m (zamš), замшь m (zamšʹ) — colloquial
  • → Armenian: զամշ (zamš)
  • → Georgian: ზამში (zamši)
• → Ukrainian: за́мша (zámša)

References

• Kobert, Rudolf (1916) “Beiträge zur Geschichte des Gerbens und der Adstringentien”, in Archiv für die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik (in German), volume 7, Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, pages 188–189 and Kobert, Rudolf (1916) “Beiträge zur Geschichte des Gerbens und der Adstringentien”, in Archiv für die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik (in German), volume 7, Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, pages 329–330
• Steinhauser, Walter (1961) “Die deutschen Stammesnamen in slawischem Munde”, in Jahrbuch für fränkische Landesforschung‎^[1] (in German), volume 21, page 332
• Vasmer, Max (1964–1973) “за́мша”, in Oleg Trubachyov, transl., Этимологический словарь русского языка [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), Moscow: Progress
• Lederpedia

Further reading

• zamsz in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• zamsz in Polish dictionaries at PWN