I stumbled into an etymological briar patch when I innocently looked up aloe in the OED — it’s one of those words I can never retain a clear image of. The range of senses was confusing enough:
1. In plural (in early use occasionally singular). An aromatic resin or wood; spec. the resin or decaying heartwood of any of several Southeast Asian trees of the genus Aquilaria (family Thymelaeaceae), burnt or used as incense; esp. that of A. malaccensis (formerly A. agallocha: see agalloch n.). Also: any of the trees from which this resin or wood is obtained. Cf. lign-aloes n. Now historical and rare.
2. Any of various plants constituting the tropical genus Aloe (family Xanthorrhoeaceae), comprising succulent shrubs or trees, typically having a basal rosette of fleshy leaves with spiked or spiny margins, bell-shaped or tubular flowers borne on leafless stems, and bitter juice, and which include aloe vera and many other plants with medicinal uses; also with distinguishing word. Also (in form Aloe): the genus itself.
3. Also more fully bitter aloe(s).
3.a. A drug made from the concentrated or dried juice of plants of the genus Aloe, having a bitter taste and unpleasant odour, and used mainly as a purgative and laxative. In later use usually in plural (with singular agreement).
3.b. figurative. Bitter experiences, occurrences, etc.; bitterness. Usually in plural (with singular agreement).
4. † A mineral (not identified) held to resemble the drug. Obsolete. rare.
5. Frequently with distinguishing word. Any of various other plants supposed to resemble those of the genus Aloe; esp. (more fully American aloe) a tropical American agave, Agave americana, with long spiny leaves.
So I think I’ll give up on ever having a grasp of it. But check out the etymology:
< classical Latin aloē aloe plant, juice of this plant used as a purgative, bitterness, in post-classical Latin also fragrant resin of the agalloch (Vulgate), partly < Hellenistic Greek ἀλόη bitter aloes, aloe vera (Dioscorides, Plutarch; of uncertain origin; probably a loanword); and partly < Hellenistic Greek ἀλώθ agalloch (Septuagint; also in New Testament in form ἀλόη, by confusion; probably < Hebrew āhālōṯ (feminine plural noun) agalloch, ultimately < an Indian language, compare Malayalam akil (see agila n.) and also Sanskrit agaru: see agarbatti n.); the conflation of the two plant names probably arose from the similarity of the words.
Compare Middle Dutch aloe (Dutch aloë), Old Saxon aloe (Middle Low German āloē, (with development of a glide) ālowe), Old High German āloē (Middle High German āloē, German Aloe). Compare also Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French aloe, French †aloé (second half of the 12th cent. denoting the wood, 13th cent. or earlier denoting the plant juice used for medicinal purposes, 1549 denoting the flower; now superseded by aloès: see below), Old Occitan aloe (14th cent.; also aloa (c1350)), Catalan àloe (13th cent.), Spanish aloe (a1250; also áloe), Portuguese aloé (13th cent.), Italian aloe (a1274). Compare lign-aloes n., lignum aloes n.
Notes
In Old English a weak feminine (al(e)we, inflected form al(e)wan).
With the β forms compare (with variable grammatical agreement) Anglo-Norman aleoes, Old French, Middle French aloes, French aloès (second half of the 12th cent. denoting the wood, 13th cent. or earlier denoting the plant juice used for medicinal purposes, 1611 in Cotgrave denoting the flower), Old Occitan aloes (13th cent.), Portuguese aloés (15th cent.; < Middle French aloes), Middle Dutch aloës.
The γ forms ultimately reflect the Latin accusative singular aloēn (which is in turn after the Greek accusative singular ἀλόην), as do Anglo-Norman and Old French aloen (10th cent.), Old Occitan aloen (c1220), Spanish †aloen (c1250), all denoting the wood, and Old High German (in a late copy) alene, denoting the flower. The γ forms are not be confused with the regular weak feminine oblique form in ‑n in Old English and early Middle English (compare quot. OE at sense 1, quots. eOE, OE, ?a1200 at sense 2).
In sense 4 after Middle French aloëes, plural noun (1562 in this sense, in Du Pinet’s translation of Pliny, in the passage translated in quot. 1601).
Whew! I dutifully went to agalloch (/əˈɡælək/ uh-GAL-uhk):
Now chiefly historical.
Aloe wood, the fragrant resinous heartwood of trees of the Southeast Asian genus Aquilaria, esp. that of A. malaccensis (formerly A. agallocha). Cf. aloe n. 1.
Etymology
< post-classical Latin agallochum, agalochum (1516 or earlier), earlier agallochon (6th cent.) < Hellenistic Greek ἀγάλλοχον, ἀγάλοχον, ultimately < an Indian language (compare the examples cited at agila n. and see note).
Notes
The Indian word was probably transmitted into Greek via a Middle Iranian language (in an extended form, with a velar suffix common in several Indo-Iranian languages); compare Pahlavi awalūg (written ’wlwg). Transmission (additionally or solely) via a Semitic language has also been suggested; compare also Hebrew āhālōṯ (see aloe n.).
And on to agila (/ˈæɡɪlə/ AG-i-luh):
The aromatic resin or (more fully agila wood) resinous wood from any of several Southeast Asian trees of the genera Aquilaria and Gyrinops; = agar n.¹
Cf. aloe n. 1, agalloch n.Etymology
< Portuguese águila (1515; 1620 or earlier in †pao d’águila aguila wood; now pau d’águila) < a Dravidian language (compare Malayalam akil, Kannada agil, Tulu agilu̥).
Compare (< a Dravidian language) Pali agaḷu, agaru, Sanskrit agaru (compare agar n.¹). Compare also agalloch n. and eagle-wood n.
What a mess! But now I’ve passed the tangle on to you, and I can clear my mind of it.
Niggli’s dictionary says that Aloe buettneri in Mooré is napʋgmaande, which looks like a compound “queen’s okra.” A number of plant names in Western Oti-Volta languages are compounds of either “queen” or “beautiful woman.” Dunno what the background to that is. (A case for Roger Blench!)
And why does aloe have only two syllables in English when it has three pretty much everywhere else? A troubling word!
In Arabic aloeswood/agarwood is just called `ūd – i.e., “wood,” the same name used for the stringed instrument.
In Japan it’s jinko, and there are some lumps of it in royal collections that are centuries old which only rarely have a sliver nipped off for an incense ceremony.
For some reason I almost never see “aloeswood” used except in reference to Japanese incense. For perfumery and attars, “oud” or “agarwood” seem to be more common.
Now with length on the stressed o and definitely not on the unstressed a.
> What a mess! But now I’ve passed the tangle on to you, and I can clear my mind of it.
Gee, thanks a million, Hat!
*whistles in a carefree manner*
Mr. Natural, Whistling.
You think you’re the Old Pooperoo, but you’re actually Flakey Foont.
On our recent trip to Vietnam we visited a very fancy Royal Agarwood Museum (with very expensive gifts and souvenirs) in the old Champa region of southern Vietnam. None of the signage confused agarwood with aloe, and it included passages about the wood from the journals of Marco Polo and Tomas Pires.
https://royalagarwood.vn/?lang=en
BTW, we somehow picked up the three-syllable pronunciation of aloe in Hawaii, maybe because it looks like a Hawaiian word. Not sure how common other variants are in Hawaii.
BTW, we somehow picked up the three-syllable pronunciation of aloe in Hawaii, maybe because it looks like a Hawaiian word.
By analogy with “aloha”?
Norw. /a’lo:.e/. I’ve always (well, for as long as I’ve been aware of it, which may coincide with the time I’ve shared hygiene facilities with my wife) assumed it was a Hawaiian word. It’s a phonotactical abomination in both Latin and Greek.
Here’s the definition and origin from the late Steve Trussel’s Combined Hawaiian Dictionary entry:
'aloe n. aloe, any plant of the genus Aloe; also the pānini 'awa'awa. Eng. PLA aloe s. Eng. Aloes. Mel. Sol. 4:14.
The word apparently entered Hawaiian from translations of the Song of Solomon 4:14:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Song+of+Solomon+4%3A14&version=NIV
“14. nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices.”
That context suggests it referred to agarwood, not Aloe vera, which is:
pānini 'awa'awa [pānini 'awa'awa] n. the true aloe (Aloe vera syn. A. barbadensis), a rosette-shaped plant from Africa and the Mediterranean region, with narrow, thick, pale-green leaves, 30 cm long or longer, with prickly edges. The leaves yield a medicine used to treat some kinds of blisters or burns. also ‘aloe. (Neal 196–7)
“also the pānini ‘awa’awa” should be “in particular the pānini ‘awa’awa”?
The word apparently entered Hawaiian from translations of the Song of Solomon 4:14
Oh, now I understand how it showed up in Old High German; a lot of the texts we have are translations of or commentaries on biblical texts.
probably < Hebrew āhālōṯ (feminine plural noun)
compare also Hebrew āhālōṯ (see aloe n.).
What a mess!
I assume the OED means to quote the forms in the Masoretic text, but it does so incorrectly. The form is אֲהָלוֹת ʾăhālōṯ, f. pl., at Ps 45:9 and Song of Sg. 4:14. There is also אֲהָלִים ʾăhālîm, m.pl., at Pr 7:17.
(There is also אֲהָלִים ʾăhālîm at Nu 24:6, which is often a target of emendation, because it does not make sense for Balaam to describe agarwood trees growing in Moab. The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia suggests אַלּוֺנִים ʾallônîm ‘oaks’ or אֵילִים ʾêlîm ‘terebinths’.)
One can overlook the OED’s not transliterating the initial aleph for nonspecialists, but the OED also uses the character ṯ for the spirantized t, so that the transliteration is something of a mishmash. But I can’t overlook that mistransliteration of the first vowel! (An ā in an open propretonic syllable always calls for a special explanation in Hebrew. The OED’s erroneous ā provokes all sorts of needless, distracting questions for the specialist.) Cf. the comment here for more careless treatment of Hebrew in revised OED entries.
An ā in an open propretonic syllable always calls for a special explanation in Hebrew
Yes, that’s remarkably sloppy. I can understand (though I naturally deplore) the OED being vague or inaccurate about African languages, but Biblical Hebrew is hardly obscure.