caoutchouc

• cahootchie

Borrowed from French caoutchouc, from Spanish caucho, from Quechua kawchu.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkaʊt͡ʃʊk/, /ˈkaʊt͡ʃuk/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

caoutchouc (countable and uncountable, plural caoutchoucs)

1. (obsolete) Latex; natural rubber.

   Synonyms: caoutchouc, india rubber

   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXIII, in Romance and Reality. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 299:

     Many a passer-by thought Miss Arundel was listening to some subject of most touching interest: his Lordship was only detailing the benefit he derived one wet day from his caoutchouc cloak.

   • 1855, William Somerville Orr, Orr's Circle of the Sciences, page 205:

     Resin, pitch, sealing-wax, caoutchouc, sulphur, gutta-percha, and generally all bodies commonly termed resinous, besides a great variety of others, will be found to acquire, after friction, the power of attracting light bodies, and hence will be said, according to a limitation of terms already accepted, to be in an electrized or electrified state .

• caoutchin
• mineral caoutchouc

• “caoutchouc”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “caoutchouc”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Borrowed from Spanish cauchuc (an early variant of caucho), from Quechua kawchu. The final -c was formerly variably pronounced or silent, but is now always silent.

• IPA^(key): /ka.ut.ʃu/

• Audio:

  (file)

caoutchouc m (plural caoutchoucs)

1. rubber (natural and synthetic)

   Synonym: gomme

2. (Louisiana, Cajun) plastic

   Synonym: plastique

3. a rubber tree, hevea (Hevea brasiliensis)
4. a rubber fig, a tropical tree often used ornamentally (Ficus elastica)
5. a raincoat

   Synonyms: imperméable, K-way

6. (in the plural) waterproof rubber boots

   Synonym: bottes de pluie

7. a rubber band

   Synonym: élastique

• caoutchouter
• caoutchouteux
• caoutchoutier
• caoutchoutique

• “caoutchouc”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.