Betelgeuse

The IAU catalogue's account

Applied with varied spellings since medieval times, from its pre-Islamic Arabian name yad al-jauza', "the Hand of al-jauza'" (The first medieval transliteration into Latin was bedalgeuze, mistaking the initial Arabic letter as "b" instead of "y." In Early Modern times this corruption was erroneously attributed to the assumed Arabic word "bat" [properly ibt], for "the Armpit" of al-jauza', giving rise to the corruption Betelgeuse" seen today. Thus by Early Modern times both the "y" and "d" of the first part of the pre-Islamic Arabian name had become corrupted.) The pre-Islamic Arabian asterism al-jauza' was a feminine figure represented in the stars of what is today Orion. The origin of its name is unclear (as with nearly all of the ancient group of pre-Islamic Arabian names). The root jwz can mean "middle," and the word al-jauza' is structured as a feminine adjective, thus al-jauza' may mean "the female one, having something about her related to the middle." There have been different speculations as to what the "middle" reference, if that is what it is, could be (for one example). The pre-Islamic Arabians' al-jauza' corresponded to what in other cultures was Gemini among the zodiacal signs. The Arabics subsequently used the indigenous name for both the Greek Orion and Twins, leading to some confusion in star names between the two constellations. An alternative name for the Arabic Almagest period for Orion was al-jabbar, "the Giant" and for Gemini, al-taw'aman, "the Twins."

Source language

Arabic

Reference

Kunitzsch, Paul; Smart, Tim (2006). A Dictionary of Modern star Names: A Short Guide to 254 Star Names and Their Derivations (2nd rev. ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Sky Pub.

Source: IAU Catalog of Star Names (IAU-CSN), Working Group on Star Names. The account is the IAU's own text and is quoted in full: it is published under CC BY.