acacia

Etymology

It is partly borrowed from Anglo-Norman acacie, also acasie and acaci, and partly borrowed from Latin acacia (“acacia or gum arabic tree; its gum”),^[2][3] from Ancient Greek ἀκακία (akakía), a thorny Egyptian tree.^[2][4][5][6] In Anglo-Norman the word is recorded from the 13th century for an astringent made from the juice of unripe plums or sloes, a sense that continental French has only later.^[2] The Greek word is of uncertain origin and probably a loanword.^[2][4] Barnhart, Weekley and Etymonline connect it with ἀκή (akḗ, “point”), from the thorns, and so with Proto-Indo-European *ak- (“to be sharp, pierce”);^[5][7][4] Klein and Partridge think it is of foreign, probably Egyptian, origin, influenced by ἄκανθα (ákantha, “thorn”) and other Greek words of the same root.^[8][9] Etymonline adds that Beekes takes it as probably a Pre-Greek Mediterranean word.^[4] The Latin word is also the source of Spanish acacia, Italian acacia and German Akazie.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A gummy astringent medicine made from the juice of unripe sloes or plums: before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus.^[2][5] Etymonline likewise dates the name of the gum to the late 14th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word first came into English as the name of the medicine,^[2][4] and Johnson (1755) still gave first a drug brought from Egypt, imitated with the boiled juice of sloes.^[10] The tree itself is named from 1542, in Elyot's Bibliotheca;^[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1540s.^[4] Ayto notes that the Greek word named the shittah, the tree of the Bible from whose wood the Ark of the Covenant was made, probably a species of acacia.^[11] From 1640 the name was also given to other leguminous trees that look like acacias, especially the North American robinia or false acacia,^[2][6][4] and in the early 19th century acacia came to mean gum arabic.^[6]

Timeline

• before 1398 – an astringent medicine made from the juice of unripe sloes or plums.^[2][5]
• 1542 – any tree or shrub of the genus Acacia.^[2]
• 1640 – other trees resembling the acacia, especially the robinia or false acacia.^[2]
• early 19th century – gum arabic.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of many trees and shrubs of the leguminous genus Acacia, of warm regions, often thorny, with small yellow or white flowers in clusters; see also wattle.^[12][3][2]
2. The false acacia or locust, a North American tree of the genus Robinia.^[12][3][2]
3. Gum arabic, also called gum acacia.^[6]
4. Formerly, in medicine, an astringent made from the juice of unripe sloes or plums, or from an Egyptian acacia.^[2][6][10]

Related words

• acid

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins