Late Middle English; earliest use found in Cleanness. Partly (i) from Anglo-Norman alketran, alktran, Middle French alkitran, alquitran liquid resin which flows from fir trees, also mineral pitch, bitumen from Spanish alquitrán from Arabic al-qaṭrān and its variant al-qiṭrān from al the + qaṭrān and its variant qiṭrān resin of fir trees, pitch, tar, of uncertain origin, probably a loanword from another Semitic language (perhaps from Aramaic ʿiṭrān ‘kind of resin’, which is etymologically related, although its different initial consonant poses phonological problems; compare also Arabic qaṭara to drip));.