mandarin: [16] Although it refers to a Chinese official, mandarin is not a Chinese word. Sanskrit mantrin meant ‘counsellor’ (it was a derivative of mantra ‘counsel’, which itself was based on man ‘think’, a distant relative of English mind). Its Hindi descendant mantrī passed into English via Malay mẽteri and Portuguese mandarin. The word’s application to a variety of small loose-skinned orange, which dates in English from the 19th century, was inspired by the yellow robes worn by mandarins. => mind[mandarin etymology, mandarin origin, 英语词源]