Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Agave
/əˈɡɑːveɪ/noun
A spiny-leaved American succulent, the source of sisal fibre and tequila.
The Greek roots
ἀγαυός
agauós
noble, illustrious
Literally: “illustrious”
Follow a root:ἀγαυός1 word
The story of the word
Linnaeus named the genus in 1753 after Ἀγαυή, the Theban princess who in Euripides tears her own son apart in a Bacchic frenzy. Her name is the feminine of ἀγαυός, noble. The plant is entirely a New World one, so the Greek here is a botanist's label pinned on a specimen the Greeks never saw.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1753
In a sentence
A single agave can grow for twenty years, flower once and die.