Cannabis

The plant name Cannabis is derived originally from a Scythian or Thracian word, which loaned into Persian as , then into Greek as and subsequently into Latin as . The Germanic word that gives rise to English hemp (Old English , Common Germanic *hanapi-z) may be an early Germanic loan (predating Grimm's Law) from the same source. Word history The Oxford English Dictionary records the earliest usages of cannabis meaning the plant "common hemp Cannabis sativa" - in 1548 , and meaning - parts of the plant "smoked, chewed, or drunk for their intoxicating or hallucinogenic properties" - in 1848. The OED traces the etymology to the Neo-Latin botanical term cannabis – proposed in 1728 and standardized in Carl Linnaeus's (1753) Species Plantarum – from an earlier Latin cannabis, coming from Greek kánnabis. Herodotus (c. 440 BCE) recorded the use of cannabis in The Histories. "The Scythians, as I said, take some of this hemp-seed [presumably, flowers], and, creeping under the felt coverings, throw it upon the red-hot stones; immediately it smokes, and gives out such a vapour as no Grecian vapour-bath can exceed; the Scyths, delighted, shout for joy." The historian and linguist Douglas Harper gives an etymology of English cannabis from Greek kannabis, from a Scythian or Thracian word, which is also the source for English canvas (viz., hempen fabric) and possibly hemp.