Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Tamarind Etymology

The fruit and the taste are well known enough. Less well known is the etymology.

The Arabs encountered it first, and found they visually resembled dates (tamr). Hence, tamr-al-hind (dates of Hind = India.)

From there on to Latin - tamarindus and tamarind in English.

The botanical name is tamarindus indica which would equate to "dates of india from india".

Shades of Major Major Major Major?

1 comment:

Varsha said...

And then there is the Child's Garden of Misinformation version, which I rather like -- "Tamarind is a tropical fruit. You eat the tama and you throw away the rind."