Dictionaries › English

tobacco

Pronunciation: /təˈbækəʊ/

The English word “tobacco” has 5 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. Any plant of the genus Nicotiana.
  2. Leaves of Nicotiana tabacum and some other species cultivated and harvested to make cigarettes, cigars, snuff, for smoking in pipes or for chewing.
  3. A variety of tobacco.

verb

  1. To indulge in tobacco; to smoke.
  2. To treat with tobacco.

Etymology

Attested since 1588, borrowed from Spanish tabaco. The Spanish word could be from Arabic طُبَّاق (ṭubbāq, “Dittrichia viscosa”) or from a Caribbean language such as Kari'na or Taíno or multiple of them, from a word meaning "roll of tobacco leaves" or "a pipe for smoking tobacco," such as tabago (“tube for inhaling smoke or powdered intoxicating plants”).

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “tobacco” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.