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Meaning & History
The name of a princess of Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) in Samuel Johnson's novella 'The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia' (1759). Its origins are uncertain, though it may be a derivative of Nicaula, the Habesha name for the queen of Sheba. Alternatively it may derive from Amharic naka "to wake" or kaye "scarlet".In the English-speaking world, it has been in occasional use from the early 1800s onwards.