Etymology

cinchona

C3I1N1C3H4O1N1A1

Today it means: A tree or shrub of the genus Cinchona, native to the Andes in South America but since widely cultivated in Indonesia and India as well for its medicinal bark. Full definition →

New Latin cinchona ← Spanish Chinchón
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The story

  1. Spanish · derived fromChinchón
  2. New Latin · borrowed fromcinchona
  3. English todaycinchona

From New Latin cinchona, from Spanish Chinchón. Named by Carl Linnaeus after Ana de Osorio, 4th Countess of Chinchón (1599–1625), the wife of the Spanish Viceroy of Peru, who was allegedly cured of a fever by the bark.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.