Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·South Asia ·1610s
Teak
from tēkku
- Meaning
- The durable tropical hardwood *Tectona grandis*.
- Source word
- tēkku
- Route into English
- Malayalam/Tamil *tēkku* → Portuguese *teca* → English. Portuguese traders in Malabar needed a word for the shipbuilding timber they were buying; the Dravidian name travelled with the cargo.
- Arrived
- 1610s
From South Asia
Three centuries of British colonial contact — East India Company, Raj, military, domestic life — deposited a distinct Hindi/Urdu/Bengali/Sanskrit layer in everyday English.
English borrows.
Browse the full loanword atlas or explore another source language.