Spices and Herbs

Here’s a look at some common spice words and their etymologies. 

Though often used interchangeably, herbs and spices refer to different parts of plants, so let's look at that first. HERB comes from the Latin herba, meaning “grass” or “green crops.” It typically refers to the leafy parts of non-woody plants. Think basil, mint, or parsley. 

SPICE traces back to the Latin species, meaning “kind” or “type,” but in medieval usage, it referred to valuable goods or wares, especially aromatic ones. 

Spices can come from roots, bark, seeds, or fruit. Cinnamon is bark. Ginger is a root. Peppercorns are a fruit. 

Pepper comes from the Sanskrit word pippali, which originally referred to long peppers. Through travel and trade, the term entered Greek (peperi) and Latin (piper) before becoming the English “pepper.” Peppercorns may look like seeds, but are actually dried berries from the Piper nigrum vine. They start green, then darken as they dry, eventually becoming the familiar black balls we grind into the familiar pepper spice.

Dill is an interesting case. It comes from the Old Norse dylla, meaning “to soothe.” You probably associate it with pickles, but its traditional use was as a digestive aid. In Colonial America, dill seeds were nicknamed "meetinghouse seeds" and chewed during long church services to calm restless children and refresh sleepy congregants. Their mild, anise-like flavor made them a natural breath mint.

Cinnamon comes from the Greek kinnamon, meaning “sweet wood.” The spice itself is the inner bark of trees in the Cinnamomum genus. In ancient Egypt and Rome, cinnamon was used in religious rituals and for embalming corpses. It was once considered more valuable than gold. Its culinary use became widespread in Europe during the Middle Ages.

Nutmeg is actually a misnomer. Nutmeg is the seed of the Myristica fragrans tree, native to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. The name comes from Latin nux (nut) and muscat (musky), though nutmeg isn’t technically a nut. It’s rich in antioxidants and has been used in traditional medicine to aid sleep and digestion.

Cumin comes from the Latin cuminum, which itself was borrowed from Greek kuminon and ultimately from Semitic languages like Hebrew (kammon) and Arabic (kammun). The spice is the dried seed of Cuminum cyminum, a flowering plant in the parsley family. It’s been used since ancient times in Middle Eastern, Indian, and Mediterranean cuisines. 

Two exceptions

Salt often is next to your spices, but it’s not one of them. Salt is a mineral, not a plant product, and its name comes from the Latin sal. That Latin also gave us "salary,” which might seem odd, but shows that salt had historic value.

Garlic is a vegetable that we often consider to be a spice. The word comes from Old English garleac, meaning “spear leek,” which is a reference to its long, pointed leaves and its relation to the leek family. Though we use it like a spice, garlic is botanically a vegetable, and every part of the plant is edible. It’s been cultivated for over 5,000 years, with early use in Egypt and India.