tobacco

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Leaves of Nicotiana tabacum and some other species cultivated and harvested to make cigarettes, cigars, snuff, for smoking in pipes or for chewing.

   Tobacco and the plant valerian are also considered to be anaphrodisiac in their effects, diminishing sexual inclination.

2. 2
   noun

   A variety of tobacco.

   Tobaccos from the Connecticut Valley were used for wrapping cigars.

3. 3
   verb

   To treat with tobacco.

   The most satisfactory method of tobaccoing houses is that of stitching the leaves on to a piece of cloth like a strip of matting, which is then laid on the floor. Powdered tobacco should be introduced into rat holes, which can then be firmly closed up with bricks and mortar. Experiments carried out in the City of Hyderabad seem to have been very satisfactory.

4. 4
   noun

   leaves of the tobacco plant dried and prepared for smoking or ingestion

5. 5
   noun

   aromatic annual or perennial herbs and shrubs

6. 6
   noun

   Any plant of the genus Nicotiana.

7. 7
   verb

   To indulge in tobacco; to smoke.

8. 8
   name

   Two rivers in Michigan, United States.

Etymology

Attested since 1588, borrowed from Spanish tabaco. The Spanish word could be from Arabic طُبَّاق (ṭubbāq, “Dittrichia viscosa”) or from a Caribbean language such as Kari'na or Taíno or multiple of them, from a word meaning "roll of tobacco leaves" or "a pipe for smoking tobacco," such as tabago (“tube for inhaling smoke or powdered intoxicating plants”).