وزير

The original attested meaning is “assistant”, and the political sense only arose in the Umayyad period. Likely related to the verb وَزَرَ (wazara, “to carry, to shoulder”) with the root و ز ر (w z r), meaning “someone who carries a burden”, but owing to the idea of assistance by handmen this may be denominal. Likely borrowed from an Iranian term surfacing as Middle Persian (wcyl /⁠vičīr⁠/, “decision, judgment”), Avestan 𐬬𐬍𐬗𐬌𐬭𐬀 (vīcira, “arbitrator, judge”, literally “deciding, one who is taking