Etymologically
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lac

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is first inherited from Middle English lacca, used in medicine about 1425.[2][3][4] It is borrowed from Anglo-Norman lac and Middle French laque, and directly borrowed from Medieval Latin lacca, also lac.[2][3][5] Etymonline takes the later form as perhaps from lacce, displacing the earlier one,[3] while other dictionaries name Portuguese laca[5][6][7] or Dutch lak as the route.[8][7][9] The Latin word comes, through Arabic, from Persian لاک (lāk),[2][3][10] and the Persian word is from Hindi लाख (lākh),[11][4][12][8] Prakrit lakkhā, from Sanskrit लाक्षा (lākṣā, “lac; red dye”).[2][3][9][11] Some dictionaries take the English word directly from Hindi or Persian.[4][12] The origin of the Sanskrit word is uncertain.[3] The OED derives it from a Sanskrit root meaning "to become coloured, red",[2] as Hobson-Jobson does in taking it for a form with r-;[11] Klein connects it with the Sanskrit word for "one hundred thousand", from the great numbers of the insects,[13][3] and Barnhart suggests that it was named from a salmon colour.[4][3] The same source gave lacquer and the pigment lake.[4][14][7][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A substance used in making pills, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie of about 1425;[2][3] the OED defines this first sense as the dark red resin produced by certain scale insects.[2]

Semantic evolution

The word reached English twice, first as a medical drug in Latin form, then in the 16th century as lac or lacke.[3][2][7] From 1558 to 1820 it was also used for various red paints and pigments,[2][5] and since 1598, in the translation of Linschoten's voyages, for the varnish of Japanese and Chinese lacquerwork,[2][12] which in English was later called lacquer.[2] Johnson (1755) distinguished stick lac, seed lac and shell lac, noting that it was wrongly called a gum.[15] Hobson-Jobson explains the same three stages: the crude crust on the twigs is stick-lac, boiled to remove the red dye it becomes seed-lac, and melted and spread in thin sheets it is shell-lac, used for sealing wax, varnishes and stiffening hats.[11] The thin sheets gave the name shellac, a translation of French laque en écailles (“lac in scales”).[10]

Timeline

  • c. 1425 – lacca, lac as a medicine.[2][3]
  • 1558 – a red paint or pigment (obsolete by 1820).[2][5]
  • 1598 – the varnish of Japanese and Chinese lacquerwork.[2][12]
  • 1662 – lacquered ware (obsolete by 1904).[2][5]
  • 1698 – verb, to varnish with lac (obsolete).[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A dark red resin secreted by certain scale insects on the twigs of trees in southern Asia, used to make shellac, varnish and dye: The craftsmen melted lac into thin sheets.[8][12][5][2]
  2. Any of various natural substances that give hard coatings like lac.[12]
  3. The varnish used on Japanese and Chinese lacquerwork.[2][12]

Word family

  • shellac
  • lac insect

Usage notes

Lac is also a spelling of lakh, one hundred thousand, which dictionaries treat as a separate word from Hindi, from a different Sanskrit word.[8][14][10][16]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  10. ^ a b c d Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  11. ^ a b c d 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
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  13. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  14. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House