Agarwood - Etymology

Etymology

Agarwood is known under many names in different cultures:

• In Urdu (Pakistan), it is known as agar(in Bengali, also aguru).
• It is known by the same Sanskrit name in Telugu and Kannada as Aguru.
• It is known as chénxiāng (沉香) in Chinese, "Cham Heong" in Cantonese, trầm hương in Vietnamese, and jinkō (沈香) in Japanese; all meaning "sinking incense" and alluding to its high density. In Japan, there are several grades of jinkō, the highest of which is known as kyara (伽羅).
• Both agarwood and its resin distillate/extracts are known as oud (عود) in Arabic (literally "rod/stick") and used to describe agarwood in nations and areas in Arabic countries. Western perfumers may also use agarwood essential oil under the name "oud" or "oude".
• In Europe it was referred to as Lignum aquila (eagle-wood) or Agilawood, because of the similarity in sound of agila to gaharu.
• Another name is Lignum aloes or Aloeswood. This is potentially confusing, since a genus Aloe exists (unrelated), which has medicinal uses.
• In Tibetan it is known as ཨ་ག་རུ་ (a-ga-ru). There are several varieties used in Tibetan Medicine: unique eaglewood: ཨར་བ་ཞིག་ (ar-ba-zhig); yellow eaglewood: ཨ་ག་རུ་སེར་པོ་ (a-ga-ru ser-po), white eaglewood: ཨར་སྐྱ་ (ar-skya), and black eaglewood: ཨར་ནག་(ar-nag).
• In Assamese it is called as "sasi" or "sashi".
• The Indonesian and Malay name is "gaharu".
• In Papua New Guinea it is called "ghara" or eaglewood.
• In Thai language it is known as "Mai Kritsana" (ไม้กฤษณา).
• In Tamil it is called "akil" (அகில்) though what was referred in ancient Tamil literature could well be Excoecaria agallocha.
• In Laos it is known as "Mai Ketsana".