olibanum
/ɒˈlɪbənəm/ noun
Forms olibanums
- noun A gum resin from trees of the genus Boswellia, formerly used as a medicine and now mainly as incense.
Synonyms
Etymology
Borrowed from Medieval Latin olibanum, from Latin oleum libani, the first word meaning oil and the second from Ancient Greek λίβανος (líbanos, “frankincense (Boswellia sacra)”), from a Semitic source, compare Proto-Semitic *laban- (“white”). Cognate with Biblical Hebrew לְבוֹנָה (l'voná, “frankincense”), Arabic لبان (lubān, “frankincense”). (Compare benzoin for a similar process of metanalysis.) Doublet of oliban.
Webster’s 1913
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “olibanum”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details