Arabic has had a great influence on other languages, especially in vocabulary. The influence of Arabic has been most profound in those countries visited by Islam or Islamic power.

Arabic loanwords have made into many languages as diverse as Amharic, Albanian, Armenian, Assyrian, Azerbaijani, Balochi, Bengali, Berber, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chechen, Croatian, Dagestani, English, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Kazakh, Kurdish, Kutchi, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Malaysian, Odia, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Serbian, Sicilian, Spanish, Sindhi, Somali, Swahili, Tagalog, Tigrinya, Turkish, Turkmen, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, Visayan and Wolof as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken. Other languages such as Maltese and Nubi derive from Arabic, rather than merely borrowing vocabulary. Arabic words were being used from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to Maritime Southeast Asia prior to the spread of European international words.

Spanish has one of the largest Arabic-influenced vocabularies of any European language, around 8%, due to Arab rule mainly in the Southern Iberia from 711 until 1492 known as Al-Andalus, however Spain's re-Christianization and resulting loss of contact with Arabic culture has led to a significant shift in both meaning and pronunciation of Spanish words of Arabic etymology.

The terms borrowed range from religious terminology (like Berber taẓallit, "prayer" < salat), academic terms (like Persian manteq, "logic"), to everyday conjunctions (like Hindi/Urdu lekin, "but"). Most Berber varieties (such as Kabyle), along with Swahili, borrow numbers from Arabic. Most religious terms used by Muslims around the world are direct borrowings from Arabic, such as ṣalāt, 'prayer' and imām, 'prayer leader'. In languages not directly in contact with the Arab world, Arabic loanwords are often mediated by other languages rather than being transferred directly from Arabic; for example many older Arabic loanwords in Hausa were borrowed from Kanuri. Arabic has also influenced the names of the days of the week in a number of languages, Indonesian, Lezgian, Malagasy, Malay, Somali, Swahili, Tausaug, Yakan.

Outside the Muslim world, there are more limited borrowings from Arabic, usually to denote vegetables and other articles in commerce, such as "aubergine", "alcohol" and also some other terms like "admiral". Among European languages, these mostly were transmitted through Spanish and Turkish.

Dozens of Arabic words occur in Interlingua, frequently because their co-occurrence in such languages as English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese can be used to verify their internationality. Many of these words entered Interlingua's vocabulary through Spanish. Arabic words in Interlingua include "algebra", "alcohol", "cifra" (cypher), "magazin", "sucro" (sugar), "zenit", and "zero".

There are far fewer Arabic loanwords in Javanese than Sanskrit loanwords, and they are usually concerned with Islamic religion. Nevertheless, some words have entered the basic vocabulary, such as pikir ("to think", from the Arabic fikr), badan ("body"), mripat ("eye", thought to be derived from the Arabic ma'rifah, meaning "knowledge" or "vision"). However, these Arabic words typically have native Austronesian or Sanskrit alternatives: pikir = galih, idhĕp (Austronesian) and manah, cipta, or cita (from Sanskrit); badan = awak (Austronesian) and slira, sarira, or angga (from Sanskrit); and mripat = mata (Austronesian and Tagalog [Philippines]) and soca or netra (from Sanskrit).

In Indonesian and Malaysian Malay, the loanwords from Arabic are mainly concerned with religion, in particular with Islam, but to a lesser extent Christianity. Words of Arabic origin include dunia (from Arabic: دنيا dunya = the present world), Sabtu (from Arabic: السبت as-sabt = Saturday), khabar or kabar (خبر ḵabar = news), selamat/salam (سلام salām = a greeting), Jumaat or Jumat (الجمعة al-jumʿa = Friday), ijazah (إجازة ijāza = vacation), kitab (كتاب kitāb = book), nikah (نكاح nikāh = marriage or wedding), tertib (ترتيب tartīb = orderly) and kamus (قاموس qāmūs = dictionary).