うきん【鬱金】 : ukin | define meaning

Cognate to Kagoshima うきん ukin and うぎん ugin; Amami うきん ukin; Okinawan うっちん utchin; Miyako うきん ukin and うきゃん ukyan; Yaeyama うっきん ukkin; as well as standard Japanese うこん・ウコン【鬱金】 ukon "turmeric".

Ultimate from Chinese 【黃薑】 "zedoary, white turmeric" (cf. Mandarin yùjīn, Cantonese wat1 gam1, Min Nan ut-kim and it-kim, Sino-Korean ulgeum, Middle Chinese *ʔɨut̚  kˠiɪm). Borrowed into Japanese as *uti-komu, which later shifted to *ukkomu, *ukkon and finally *ukon.

The vowel change from *o to *i in southern Kyushu and Ryukyu could be due to reading 金 as きん kin. Alternatively, the term was borrowed with the vowel *i into these areas from the start (compare Min Nan).