tacamahac

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Nahuatl tecamac.[1]

In the 19th century, some authorities questioned if tacamahac, tamarack, and hackmatack could be cognate to one another, perhaps all corruptions of one term, but such cognacy is unlikely.[2]

Noun

tacamahac (countable and uncountable, plural tacamahacs)

  1. A bitter balsamic resin or resinous exudation obtained from tropical American trees of the family Burseraceae (Bursera tomentosa and Icica tacamahaca), from East Indian trees of the genus Calophyllum, or from the balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera).
  2. Any tree yielding tacamahac resin, especially, in North America, the balsam poplar or balm of Gilead (Populus balsamifera).

Synonyms

References
  1. “tacamahac”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
  2. Chamberlain, Alexander F. (October–December 1902), “Algonkian Words in American English: A Study in the Contact of the White Man and The Indian”, in The Journal of American Folk-Lore‎, volume XV, issue LIX, American Folk-Lore Society, →DOI, page 260
  • tacamahac in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.