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You are here: Home / Language / How Did the Rhubarb Get Its Name and Where Does the Word “Rhubarb” Come From?

How Did the Rhubarb Get Its Name and Where Does the Word “Rhubarb” Come From?

June 11, 2020 by Karen Hill

The rhubarb is a plant that was known to the ancient Greeks, and it was they who named it.

how did the rhubarb get its name

The general theory explaining its source is that the plant was native to the regions along the river Volga, then known as the Rha.

This, of course, was territory foreign to the Greeks, and was therefore classed as “barbarian.” The plant, then, was described as rha barbaron, “from the barbarian (foreign) Rha.”

Its later Latin name was rhabarbarum, which, by elision, corruption, and partial restoration, passed into English rubarbe and, with Greek characteristics partly restored, rhubarb.

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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