late 16th century: from French magasin, from Italian magazzino, from Arabic maḵzin, maḵzan ‘storehouse’, from ḵazana ‘store up’. The term originally meant ‘store’ and was often used from the mid 17th century in the title of books providing information useful to particular groups of people, whence magazine (mid 18th century). magazine, a contemporary specialization of the original meaning, gave rise to magazine in the mid 18th century.