Aquilaria

Translingual

Etymology

Coined by French naturalist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck in 1783.[1] From Portuguese pao d’aquila (Eagle wood) (modern Portuguese pau-d'áquila),[2] from pao d'aguila, pao d'agila, (whence English eaglewood), and a related Latin arbor aquilae. Displaced Latin agallochum, from Ancient Greek ἀγάλοχον (agálokhon). All of which are ultimately from Dravidian,[3] probably Tamil அகில் (akil).[4] Related to Sanskrit अगुरु (aguru).

Proper noun

Aquilaria f

  1. A taxonomic genus within the family Thymelaeaceae – the source of agarwood.

Hypernyms

Hyponyms

References

  1. ^ Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste, Poiret, Jean-Louis-Marie (1783) Encyclopédie méthodique. Botanique[[1], Panckoucke; Plomteux, pages Vol. 1, 49; Vol. II, 610
  2. ^ Shiou Yih Lee, Rozi Mohamed (2016) The Origin and Domestication of Aquilaria, an Important Agarwood-Producing Genus[2], Singapore: Springer, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 2-3
  3. ^ Turner, Ralph Lilley (1969–1985) “agaru”, in A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages, London: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ Shulman, David (2016) Tamil: A biography, Harvard University Press, pages 19-20:
    We have ahalim [in Hebrew], probably derived directly from Tamil akil rather than from Sanskrit aguru, itself a loan from the Tamil (Numbers 24.8; Proverbs 7.17; Song of Songs 4.14; Psalms 45.9--the latter two instances with the feminine plural form ahalot. Akil is, we think, native to South India, and it is thus not surprising that the word was borrowed by cultures that imported this plant.