A unit of weight used in some Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries, roughly equivalent to 1.3 kilograms or about 2.8 pounds.
From Turkish 'oka,' which comes from Arabic 'waqiyyah,' originally a unit of weight. The word traveled into English through trade contacts with Ottoman and Arabic-speaking regions.
The oka shows how trade created linguistic bridges—merchants from different empires needed to agree on measurements, so words like 'oka' traveled along spice routes and became part of multiple languages.
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