English
lactose
Lactose comes from French lactose, and goes back to Latin lac ‘milk’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CElac‘milk’
- Frenchc. 1600–presentlactose
- Englishtodaysame form
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CElac‘milk’
- Frenchc. 1600–presentlactose
- Englishtodaysame form
Formed from lac ‘milk’ + -ose
Sanskrit लक्ष ‘a mark, sign, token’
Sauraseni Prakrit 𑀮𑀓𑁆𑀔
Urdu لاکھ ‘lakh, lac’
Hindi लाख
Portuguese laca ‘lake’
English lac
The story
Coined by French chemist Marcelin Berthelot.
Linked words
through Latin lac ‘milk’
Today it means
noun The disaccharide sugar of milk and dairy products, C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁, a product of glucose and galactose used as a food and in medicinal compounds.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin lac / lactose