lign-aloes

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English, from Middle French lignalöé, from Latin lignum + aloes. Compare lign-. The -s originates in the Latin genitive case, but it seems to have been reinterpreted as an English plural form.

Noun

lign-aloes (plural lign-aloes)

  1. agalloch, aloes
  2. agarwood, trees of the genus Aquilaria, especially the species Aquilaria malaccensis
    • c. 1380 "Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde." In the digital collection Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Book IV, line 1135ff.
      The woful teeris that they leten falle
      As bittre weren out of teris kynde,
      ffor peyne, as is ligne aloes or galle:
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Numbers 24:6:
      As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as the trees of Lign-Aloes which the LORD hath planted, and as Cedar trees beside the waters.

References

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