Achar

achar (also acar, achard) an Indian name for pickle. As Achaya (1994) notes, a Persian or Arabic derivation is commonly given for the name, but Rumphius in the mid-18th century noted that the name axi or achi was among those used in America for the chilli pepper and he (Rumphius) thought that this was the origin of the Indian word achar (no doubt because chilli pepper is an important ingredient for pickles).

There are other theories about the origin of the word. Hobson-Jobson (1903; see Yule and Burnell, 1979) has the following interesting entry:

[The word is] adopted in nearly all the vernaculars of India for acid and salt relishes. By Europeans it is used as the equivalent of ‘pickles’ and is applied to all the stores of Crosse and Blackwell in that kind. We have adopted the word through the Portuguese; but it is not impossible that Western Asiatics got it originally from the Latin acetaria.