Spinach
Middle English: probably from Old French espinache, via Arabic from Persian aspānāḵ .
wiktionary
From Middle English spinach, from Anglo-Norman spinache, from Old French espinoche, from Old Occitan espinarc, from Arabic إِسْفَانَاخ (ʾisfānāḵ), from Persian اسپناخ (espanâx).
etymonline
spinach (n.)
c. 1400 (late 13c. as a surname), from Anglo-French spinache, Old French espinache (14c., Modern French épinard, from a form with a different suffix), from Old Provençal espinarc, which perhaps is via Catalan espinac, from Andalusian Arabic isbinakh, from Arabic isbanakh, from Persian aspanakh "spinach." But OED is not convinced the Middle Eastern words are native, and based on the plethora of Romanic forms pronounces the origin "doubtful."
Popeye, the spinach-eating superman, debuted in 1929. Old folk etymology connected the word with Latin spina (see spine) or with Medieval Latin Hispanicum olus. For pronunciation, see cabbage. In 1930s colloquial American English, it had a sense of "nonsense, rubbish," based on a famous New Yorker cartoon of Dec. 8, 1928. Related: spinaceous.
