senna

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin senna, a variant of sena,^[2][3][4] from Arabic سَنَا (sanā).^{[2][5][6][7][8][1]} The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English call the Latin form medieval,^[9][10] Etymonline gives the Arabic word with its article,^[4] and Skeat derived the English word through Italian sena, citing Florio.^[11] The American Heritage Dictionary relates the Arabic word to an Aramaic name for a thorn bush.^[5] Middle English had earlier sene, from Old French sené and Medieval Latin sene, recorded before 1400 for the powdered leaves used as a drug;^[12][4][13] the OED compares this older word.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tropical shrub of the genus Cassia, with yellow flowers and flat pods: 1543, in B. Traheron's Interpretation of Straunge Wordes.^[2][6] Etymonline dates it to the 1540s, and Merriam-Webster Unabridged also gives 1543.^[4][8]

Semantic evolution

The plant gave its name to the drug made from its dried leaflets, a cathartic, recorded from 1571 in a will from the north of England.^[2][6][4] Gerard's Herball (1597) said that the plant grew in Syria, Egypt, Italy and Provence, that the best came from Alexandria and Egypt, and that the Arabians had been the first to find it.^[4] Traders told the kinds of the drug apart by place names, as Alexandrian, Aleppo and Arabian senna, from 1693;^[2] from 1705 the name was also given, with a qualifying word, to plants of other genera with similar medicinal effects, such as bladder senna.^[2][9] Johnson (1755) described it simply as a medicinal tree with rose-like flowers and flat pods.^[14]

Timeline

• 1543 – a shrub of the genus Cassia.^[2][6][8]
• 1571 – the dried leaflets used as a cathartic.^[2][6]
• 1693 – trade names of the drug such as Alexandrian senna.^[2]
• 1705 – with a qualifying word, plants of other genera, as bladder senna.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of various mostly tropical plants of the legume family, of the genus Cassia or its relatives, with yellow flowers and long flat pods.^[15][8][2]
2. The dried leaflets or pods of some of these plants, used as a laxative or purgative: The herbalist recommended a mild senna tea.^[15][8][2]
3. With a qualifying word, any of various plants of other genera with similar properties, such as bladder senna.^[2][9]

Word family

• wild senna

Related words

• cassia

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Webster's Third also record senna, or sehna, for a small, finely woven Persian rug with short pile, named after the town of Sinneh in north-western Iran.^[8][16]

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam