Did you know... What is lac originally?

The word lac derives, through a series of borrowings, from the Sanskrit word lākṣā, meaning lac. Lac is in its original sense the resinous secretion of the lac insect (Coccus lacca), a relative of scale insects. Lac (or a similar substance called cochineal in the west but referred to by the same term in Sanskrit) is used as a dye and occasionally also utilised in traditional medicine. Its purified form is called shellac (because of the large, pearlescent, shell-like flakes it forms) and was used throughout the world as a varnish. Nowadays lac often still means this original natural substance, but its derivative lacquer is used chiefly for synthetic varnishes.

The reason I first wrote this trivia article was that I had just read somewhere that "the word lac comes from India, where its meaning is 'a hundred thousand'". Now this is a rather funny slip. Indeed, the Hindi equivalent of lākṣā is lākh, and there is another Hindi word lākh, which means a hundred thousand (also often used as lakh or even lac in English). But the two words are quite unrelated; the number lākh is lakṣa in Sanskrit.

Source: just believe me :)

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