The story
- Swedish · derived fromlack“lacquer”
- Latin · derived fromnovus“new”
- English todaynovolac
From Latin novus (“new”) + Swedish lack (“lacquer”), because these materials were envisioned to replace natural lacquers such as copal resin.
Words from the same roots
Latinnovus all →
novanovilunarNovocastriannovuss
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.