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benzene [benzene 词源字典]: benzene: [19] The original name given to this hydrocarbon, by the German chemist Eilhardt Mitscherlich in 1833, was benzine. He based it on the term benzoic acid, a derivative of benzoin, the name of a resinous substance exuded by trees of the genus Styrax. This came ultimately from Arabic lubān-jāwī, literally ‘frankincense of Java’ (the trees grow in Southeast Asia).

When the expression was borrowed into the Romance languages, the initial lu- was apprehended as the definite article, and dropped (ironically, since in so many Arabic words which do contain the article al, it has been retained as part and parcel of the word – see ALGEBRA). This produced a variety of forms, including French benjoin, Portuguese beijoim, and Italian benzoi.

English probably acquired the word mainly from French (a supposition supported by the folketymological alteration benjamin which was in common use in English from the end of the 16th century), but took the z from the Italian form. Meanwhile, back with benzine, in the following year, 1834, the German chemist Justus von Liebig proposed the alternative name benzol; and finally, in the 1870s, the chemist A W Hofmann regularized the form to currently accepted chemical nomenclature as benzene.
=> benzol[benzene etymology, benzene origin, 英语词源]
cinnamon (n.): late 14c., from Old French cinnamone (13c.), from Latin cinnamum, cinnamomum "cinnamon" (also used as a term of endearment), from Greek kinnamomon, from a Phoenician word akin to Hebrew qinnamon. Stripped from the bark of a tree in the avocado family. Ceylon cinnamon, the true cinnamon, is used in Britain, but American cinnamon is almost always from the related cassia tree of Southeast Asia and is stronger and sweeter.
east: Old English east, eastan (adj., adv.) "east, easterly, eastward;" easte (n.), from Proto-Germanic *aust- "east," literally "toward the sunrise" (cognates: Old Frisian ast "east," aster "eastward," Dutch oost Old Saxon ost, Old High German ostan, German Ost, Old Norse austr "from the east"), from PIE *aus- (1) "to shine," especially of the dawn (cognates: Sanskrit ushas "dawn;" Greek aurion "morning;" Old Irish usah, Lithuanian auszra "dawn;" Latin aurora "dawn," auster "south;" see aurora). The east is the direction in which dawn breaks. For theory of shift in the geographical sense in Latin, see Australia.

As one of the four cardinal points of the compass, from c. 1200. Meaning "the eastern part of the world" (from Europe) is from c. 1300. Cold War use of East for "communist states" first recorded 1951. French est, Spanish este are borrowings from Middle English, originally nautical. The east wind in Biblical Palestine was scorching and destructive (as in Ezek. xvii:10); in New England it is bleak, wet, unhealthful. East End of London so called by 1846; East Side of Manhattan so called from 1871; East Indies (India and Southeast Asia) so called 1590s to distinguish them from the West Indies.
gamboge (n.): type of gum-resin from Southeast Asia, used in Europe as a yellow dye and as a purgative in medicine, 1630, in widely varying spellings, from Modern Latin cambogium, ultimately from the source of the place name Cambodia.
Laos: Southeast Asian land, from the name of legendary founder Lao. Related: Laotian.
Mekong: river in Southeast Asia, Thai, from me "mother" + khong "river, large stream."
SEATO: 1954, acronym for Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.
Tai (n.): group of people of related ethnicity and language in Southeast Asia, including the Thai, Lao, and Shan, from tai, literally "free."
Vietnam: country in Southeast Asia, from Vietnamese Viet, the people's name + nam "south." Division into North and South lasted from 1954 to 1976. Vietnam War attested by 1963.
manufactory: "A factory", Early 17th century (denoting a manufactured article): from manufacture, on the pattern of factory. More factory from late 16th century:The first factories were far from any urban area, in India and southeast Asia. A factory in the late 16th century was a trading company's foreign base or station. The first use of the word in something like the modern sense came in the early 17th century, but until the Victorian era a building where goods were produced was more usually called a manufactory. The root of factory is Latin facere ‘to make or do’, the source of a great many English words such as fact, factor, feat, and feature (all LME). The sense ‘a place where things are made’ probably came from Latin factorium ‘oil press’.