“Czar” vs “tsar” - origins and pronunciation

Question

How did the word come into English with the two variants czar and tsar? The 'ts' spelling is a transliteration of the Russian 'царь', but the 'cz' spelling is what interests me more. To me it looks Polish, where 'cz' is common, but is pronounced as English 'ch'. Where did this second form come from?

Answer 1

The spelling 'czar' was almost universally used in the U.S. well into my adulthood. I am now in my 80's. During WWII we had various people in the government running imnportant programs who were dubbed 'czar' of their program, whether it had to do with manpower or some industry or price controls. The word morphed into 'tsar', which my limited knowledge of Slavic languages would suggest is closer to the Russian, sometime later, probably gradually through the '50's to 70's--much more recently than a century ago. I can recall noting the change and wondering why. If the OED doesn't cite usage to indicate when the change took place, I don't know who would.

Answer 2

Here’s what the OED says:

The Slavonic word ultimately represents Latin Cæsar, but came . . . through the medium of a Germanic language in which the word had the general sense ‘emperor’ . . . The spelling with cz- is against the usage of all Slavonic languages; the word was so spelt by . . . the chief early source of knowledge as to Russia in Western Europe, whence it passed into the Western Languages generally; in some of these it is now old-fashioned; the usual German form is now zar ; French adopted tsar during the 19th cent. This also became frequent in English towards the end of that century, having been adopted by the Times newspaper as the most suitable English spelling.