Damascus - Damascene - damascene - damask

The words damascene and damask both derive from Damascus, the English name for the capital city of Syria, generally considered to be among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The name of the city in Arabic is دمشق (dimashq): the English name, which is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, IPA: / də 'mæs kəs or də 'mɑːs kəs/, comes from the Latin Damascus, itself a transliteration of the city’s Greek name Δαμασκός (Damaskos).

• Damascene – pronounced with the stress on the first or the third syllable and the ‘c’ silent, IPA: /'dæ mə ,siːn or. ,dæ mə 'siːn/ - may be written with an upper-case or a lower-case initial letter.

With an upper-case initial letter, Damascene, like the Latin adjective damascēnus from which it derives, means ‘of or relating to Damascus’. The Christian theologian John of Damascus (c 675-749 CE) is sometimes known as John Damascene; while ‘a Damascene conversion’ is another name for a Pauline conversion: Saint Paul’s conversion took place ‘near Damascus’ (Acts of the Apostles, ch. 9, v. 3). As a noun, a Damascene may be an inhabitant of Damascus or a variety of fancy pigeon distinguished by its silvery plumage and thought to have been first bred in Damascus.

With a lower-case initial letter, damascene may be a noun, an adjective, or a verb. As a verb, ‘to damascene’ means ‘to ornament (a metal surface) by etching or inlaying (especially silver or gold)’; as a noun, the word may refer to an article which has been ornamented in this way or to the ornamentation itself; and as an adjective, it means ‘of or relating to this process of ornamentation’.

• Damask – pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, IPA: /'dæ məsk/ – is probably most commonly used as the name of a type of heavy fabric which has a pattern woven into it and is often used to make tablecloths, curtains, and the like. The word may be used either as a noun to refer to an article made of this fabric (e.g., a tablecloth) or as a modifier (e.g., a damask tablecloth).

However, damask is used in a number of other ways. It may refer to a colour, i.e., the greyish pink colour of the damask rose (rosa damascena), whose fragrant flowers are used to make the perfume attar of roses. Damask in this sense may be used as a modifier, as in ‘damask wallpaper’ or ‘damask bed linen’. Damask is also used as a modifier, though with a different meaning, in the phrase ‘damask steel’, an alternative for ‘Damascus steel’, an exceptionally hard but flexible form of steel, so called because it was originally made in Damascus.

Etymological note: it is an oddity that the English name of the fruit Prunus damascena, communis, insititia or domestica should be damson: this is an aphetic descendant of its original name, a prune [original French for 'plum'] of Damascus. The fruit-tree may have been brought to Britain by the Romans from Syria; but it may also be a native variety of plum.