india-rubber

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an old-fashioned name for natural rubber, the elastic waterproof material obtained from plant latex

   The engineer replaced the cracked india-rubber seal around the pipe.

A late-eighteenth-century compound of India and rubber, historically used for caoutchouc imported through trade with the Indies. Rubber became the English name for the substance because small pieces were used to rub out pencil marks. The spaced and hyphenated spellings both occur in older writing.

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