jute

Etymology

It is borrowed from Bengali ঝুট (jhuṭo),^{[1][2][3][4][5]} also with ō in the first syllable.^[2][3][6] Skeat and Hobson-Jobson take the word from the name of the fibre in Orissa, where the form with ō was held to be the proper one and the form with u the popular one.^[7][8] The Bengali word is from Sanskrit जूट (jūṭa, “twisted hair, matted hair”),^{[3][2][4][9][10]} a less usual form of जटा (jaṭā, “braid of hair”).^[3][9][10] Etymonline calls the Sanskrit word of unknown origin, perhaps not Indo-European,^[4] and Klein of uncertain but probably non-Aryan origin.^[9] Barnhart and the American Heritage Dictionary take it as probably Dravidian,^[2][11] and Barnhart compares a Telugu word for a tuft of hair.^[2] The Oxford dictionaries of current English trace the Bengali word to Prakrit instead.^[12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The fibre of the jute plants: 1746, in the log of the ship Wake, published in 1901.^[3][8] Hobson-Jobson had first credited the earliest use to Dr Roxburgh, who in a letter of 1795 drew the attention of the Court of Directors to a fibre "called jute by the natives".^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word was first a trade name for the fibre, which was imported chiefly from Bengal and made into sacking, cordage and coarse cloth.^[3][8] The plant itself is called jute from 1861.^[3] Hobson-Jobson describes jute as having become, in the 45 years before it wrote, a major export of India and a material for manufacture in Britain as well as in India.^[8] In 1879 Skeat explained the word from the Sanskrit for the matted hair of an ascetic, which he said had also come to mean the fibrous roots of a tree such as the banyan and then any fibrous substance.^[8] Hobson-Jobson thought these secondary meanings very doubtful.^[8] Partridge likewise traces a path from a braid of hair to matted hair to a fibrous root.^[10]

Timeline

• 1746 – the fibre from the bark of the jute plants.^[3][2][4]
• 1861 – the plant that yields the fibre.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A strong, coarse fibre from the stems of two tropical plants, used for sacking, burlap, rope and cheap twine: The coffee arrived in jute bags.^[5][14][3]
2. Either of the two plants of the genus Corchorus that yield this fibre.^[5][14][3]

Word family

• jutelike

Usage notes

The capitalised Jute, a member of the Germanic people that settled in Kent and elsewhere in southern Britain, is unrelated: it goes back to the Old English name of that people, influenced in spelling by the Latin of Bede.^[12][15][4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Yule, Henry; Burnell, A. C. (1903), Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, new ed. by William Crooke, London: John Murray
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press