Meaning

noun widely cultivated tropical plant of India having yellow flowers and a large aromatic deep yellow rhizome; source of a condiment and a yellow dye

noun ground dried rhizome of the turmeric plant used as seasoning

originFrom Middle English turmeryte, tarmaret, of uncertain origin. Possibly corrupted from Arabic كُرْكُم (kurkum, “Curcuma”) or from Old French terre mérite (“deserving earth”), potentially as a folk etymology of the Arabic.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0