Everyday LifeGreek → English
Cinnamon
/ˈsɪnəmən/noun
The fragrant dried inner bark of a tropical tree, used as a spice.
The Greek roots
κιννάμωμον
kinnámōmon
cinnamon bark
Literally: “the spice kinnamon”
Follow a root:κιννάμωμον1 word
The story of the word
The Greeks did not invent this word. They borrowed it from a Semitic language, close to Hebrew qinnāmôn, along with the bark itself. Herodotus reports that the sticks were gathered from the nests of giant birds in Arabia, a tale the traders had every reason to encourage, since the real source was Sri Lanka. Latin cinnamomum passed through French and reached English in the late 14th century, displacing the older English name canel.
- How it travelled
- Semitic → Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- late 14th century
In a sentence
He puts cinnamon in the rice pudding and nobody has ever objected.
The whole stairwell smelled of cinnamon by four o'clock.