Word
tobacco
Phoneticsto·bac·co
US/təˈbæˌkoʊ/
UK/təbˈækəʊ/
Definitions
01the dried leaves
n. the dried leaves of a plant used to make cigarettes, cigars, or pipe mixtures.
n. the cured and processed leaves of the tobacco plant, typically used for smoking, chewing, or as snuff.
“He bought a small pouch of tobacco to roll his own cigarettes.”
“The government increased the tax on loose tobacco in an effort to discourage young people from starting to smoke.”
Usage
Usually uncountable when referring to the substance.
02the plant
n. a tall plant with large leaves that is grown on farms to produce tobacco.
n. any plant belonging to the genus Nicotiana, especially those cultivated for commercial leaf production.
“The farmers in this region have grown tobacco for many generations.”
“Agricultural scientists are developing new strains of tobacco that are more resistant to common soil-borne diseases.”
Usage
Can be countable when referring to specific botanical varieties.
Real-World Examples
“He was also ahead of his time in fighting to restrict smoking in public and to oblige tobacco companies to print health warnings on their packaging.” “Freedom of Information requests revealed for the first time that more than 3,600 shops across the UK had illegal goods - such as counterfeit cigarettes, tobaccos, and vapes - seized over 2024-25.” Etymology
Attested since 1588, borrowed from Spanish tabaco. The Spanish word could be from Arabic طُبَّاق (ṭubbāq, “Dittrichia viscosa”) or from a Caribbean language such as Kari'na or Taíno or multiple of them, from a word meaning "roll of tobacco leaves" or "a pipe for smoking tobacco," such as tabago (“tube for inhaling smoke or powdered intoxicating plants”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/tobacco