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sandalwood

UK/ˈsandəlwʊd/US/ˈsandəlwʊd/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,384 of 15,258neutral

Sandalwood is a fragrant wood used for carving and perfume. Sandalwood oil, a sandalwood box, the scent of sandalwood.

The scent is in the heartwood and takes decades to develop, which is why the tree is felled at thirty years or more and why the wild Indian species has been cut nearly to extinction. Trade in it is now controlled, and much of the supply comes from Australia.

KarlM (talk) · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of sandalwood

  1. 1nounsandalwoodA fragrant wood used for carving and perfume.C1

    “The soap had a warm, woody smell of sandalwood.”

sandalwood is a wood.

Where it comes from

Medieval Latin sandalum comes through Greek and Persian from a Sanskrit name for the tree.

  1. Sanskrit

    चन्दन — sandalwood

  2. Arabic

    صَنْدَل

  3. Medieval Greek

    σάνδανον

  4. Medieval Latin

    sandalum

  5. Middle English

    sandal — sandalwood

  6. English, today

    sandalwood

From sandal + wood, the first component being from Middle English sandal (“sandalwood”), from Medieval Latin sandalum, from Medieval Greek σάνδανον, σάνταλον, from Arabic صَنْدَل, from pal (“sandalwood”), from Sanskrit चन्दन (“sandalwood”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

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sandalwood in the wild

  • The Santalaceae, the sandalwood family, are a family of flowering plants (including trees, shrubs, and herbs) which, like other members of Santalales, are partially parasitic on other plants.

    Santalaceae

  • Santalum is a genus of woody flowering plants in the Santalaceae family, the best known and most commercially valuable of which is the Indian sandalwood tree, S. album.

    Santalum

  • Indian sandalwood (S. album) is native to the tropical dry deciduous forests the Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Arnhem Land of northern Australia.

    Santalum

  • Santalum album is a small tropical tree, and the traditional source of sandalwood oil.

    Santalum album

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.