Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Terebinth
/ˈtɛrəbɪnθ/noun
A small Mediterranean tree of the pistachio family, tapped for its fragrant resin.
The Greek roots
τερέβινθος
terébinthos
terebinth tree
Literally: “the resin tree”
Follow a root:τερέβινθος3 words
The story of the word
This is the tree turpentine was named for, though turpentine has come from pines for many centuries. The Hebrew Bible's elah is usually translated terebinth, and the tree marks the places where something is buried or a promise made. The Greek word has no Indo-European ancestry and was most likely taken over from a language spoken in the Aegean before Greek arrived.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
turpentineterpene
In a sentence
A single terebinth held the corner of the field where nothing else would grow.