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START / NODE 228Present-Day English1655–today
tea
The English name of the beverage, carried through the Dutch maritime network from a Southern Min form of the Chinese word 茶.
“Tea and chai are not independent root stories. They are two global descendants of the same Chinese word, separated largely—but not universally—by maritime and overland transmission.”OPEN COMPLETE WORD DOSSIER ↗
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00Present-Day English · attestedtea
the leaves of Camellia sinensis or a beverage made by infusing them
01
PARENT ROUTES1 REVIEWED RELATIONSHIP
Present-Day Englishtea
the leaves of Camellia sinensis or a beverage made by infusing them
↑GO DEEPER
Dutch · 17th century–todaytheetea
- SOUND CHANGE
- English tea reflects the Dutch thee-type form; the modern /iː/ follows the wider English raising of earlier /eː/.
- SEMANTIC CHANGE
- The plant and beverage senses were retained, then English developed additional meal, social-event, infusion, and slang branches.
- SCHOLAR
- Östen Dahl
- CONFIDENCE
- probable — WALS describes Dutch-mediated European diffusion, while Merriam-Webster compresses the etymology to borrowing from Xiamen Chinese. The Dutch stage is therefore shown but disputed.
- CHRONOLOGY
- English is recorded from 1655; Dutch maritime diffusion belongs to the seventeenth century.
2 CITATIONSChapter 138: TeaChapter 138, discussion of Dutch diffusion from Amoy/Xiamen Tea — Definition and Word HistoryEtymology and First Known Use AUDIT CANONICAL EDGE 224 ↗
Describes Dutch adoption of the Southern Min form and its spread through European and colonial maritime routes.
ORIGINAL ↗Compresses the English etymology to Chinese (Xiamen) dé and supplies the 1655 first-use date.
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