Everyday LifeGreek → English
Retsina
/rɛtˈsiːnə/noun
Greek white wine flavoured with pine resin.
The Greek roots
ῥητίνη
rhētínē
pine resin
Literally: “resined wine”
Follow a root:ῥητίνη2 words
The story of the word
The resin came first. Ῥητίνη was pine pitch, smeared inside amphorae to seal them, and the wine inside picked up the taste whether anyone wanted it or not. Latin took the word as resina, it came back into Greek as ρετσίνι, and the modern wine is named after the sealant. Aleppo pine resin is now added deliberately, so a side effect of the packaging became the product.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Modern Greek → English
- First recorded
- 20th century
Same family
resinresinousrosin
In a sentence
A cold retsina with grilled octopus makes sense in a way it never does at home.
He poured the retsina and warned us it tasted of the forest.