/li’vant/‘
Historically referring to the lands on the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean. Stretching from the sea to the Arabian Desert, and from the Taurus mountains in Asia Minor to the Sinai Desert in the south.
Borrowed from the French word lévant ‘rising’ or ‘the rising sun in the east’, originally from the Latin levo ‘to rise’.
First seen in English in 1497, meaning to be spirited away. To set sail for the East.