sumac
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈs(j)uːmæk/
ipa: /ˈʃuː-/
ipa: /ˈsuːˌmæk/
ipa: /ˈsu-/
Forms: form: sumacs
form: shumac
form: shumack
form: sumach
form: sumack
Etymology: The noun is derived from Middle English sumac, asimac, simak, sumak, symak (“portions of the shrub Rhus coriaria, chiefly used for medicinal purposes”), from Anglo-Norman sumak, symak, and Old French sumac, or directly from its etymon Medieval Latin sumach, sumac, from Arabic سُمَّاق (summāq), from Classical Syriac ܣܘܡܩܐ (summāqā, “red; sumac”). The English word is cognate with Italian sommaco, sommacco, Occitan simac, Portuguese sumagre, Spanish zumaque.
The verb is derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: The Rhamnus of Maderaspatan, and the Trifoliate Sumachs from the Coaſt of Africa, are altogether new.
ref: 1693 January, Leonardi Plukenetii [i.e., Leonard Plukenet], “PHYTOGRAPHIA seu Plantæ quamplurimæ novæ & Literis huc usque incognitæ variis & remotissimis Provinciis ipsisq; Indiis allatæ Nomine & Iconibus. […]”, in Philosophical Transactions. Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours, of the Ingenious, in Many Considerable Parts of the World, volume VI, number 196, London: Printed for T. Woodward, […] and C. Davis […] printers to the Royal Society, →OCLC, page 621:
text: Shumack, Chapacour, and the famous Snake-root, ſo much admir'd in England for being a Cordial, and an Antidote in all Peſtilential Diſeases.
ref: 1708, J[ohn] Oldmixon, “[The History of Virginia.] Of the Climate, the Soil, and Its Productions, as Trees, Seeds, Plants, Roots, Fruits, and Flowers.”, in The British Empire in America, Containing the History of the Discovery, Settlement, Progress and Present State of All the British Colonies, on the Continent and Islands of America. In Two Volumes. […], volume I, London: Printed for John Nicholson […], Benjamin Tooke […], and Richard Parker and Ralph Smith […], →OCLC, page 308:
text: In the mean Time, gargle your Throat, and waſh all your Sores, and Ulcers with the ſame warm Liquor, which ought to be made freſh every 2 Days. Beſides all this, you muſt chew the Sumac Root very often, and ſwallow the healing Juice.
ref: 1734, [John Tennent], Every Man His Own Doctor: Or, The Poor Planter’s Physician. […], 2nd edition, Williamsburg, Va.; Annapolis, Md.: Printed and sold by William Parks, […], →OCLC; republished Williamsburg, Va.: Printing and Post Office, Colonial Williamsburg, 1971, →OCLC, page 51:
text: Plant cutings of Myrtles in a bed of light rich earth, obſerving to water and ſhade them until they have taken root; and now you may plant cutings of [...] African Sumaches, and many other exotic plants, which are ſhrubby; [...]
ref: 1757, Philip Miller, “June”, in The Gardeners Kalendar; Directing what Works are Necessary to be Done Every Month in the Kitchen, Fruit, and Pleasure-gardens, as also the Conservatory and Nursery. […], 11th edition, London: Printed by Charles Rivington, for John Rivington, […]; and James Rivington and James Fletcher, […], →OCLC, page 185:
text: Often, on descending into the narrow valleys, we found a little spot of cultivation, a garden, or a field hedged round with shumacs, rhododendrons, and azalias, and a cottage covered with roses.
ref: 1832, [Frances Milton] Trollope, chapter XVIII, in Domestic Manners of the Americans. […], London: Printed for Whittaker, Treacher, & Co.; […], →OCLC, page 160:
text: Immediately after leaving the town, on each side of the road, were the purple flowers of the iron-weed and the red shumack, under which the deer love to repose, for it conceals them from their enemies, as the variegated heath did the tartan-clad Highlanders.
ref: 1833, J[ames] E[dward] Alexander, chapter IV, in Transatlantic Sketches, Comprising Visits to the Most Interesting Scenes in North and South America, and the West Indies. […] In Two Volumes, volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 82:
text: A young forest growing up under your windows, and wild sumachs and blackberry vines breaking through into your cellar; sturdy pitch-pines rubbing and creaking against the shingles for want of room, their roots reaching quite under the house.
ref: 1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Sounds”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 139:
text: Here, be gardens of Hesperian mould, / Recesses rare, temples of birch and fern, / Preserves of light-green Sumac, Ivy thick, / And old stone-fences tottering to their fall, [...]
ref: 1858, [William Ellery Channing], Near Home. A Poem, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, →OCLC, page 46:
text: Without the wall a birch-tree shows / Its drouped and tasselled head; / Within, a stag-horned sumack grows, / Fern-leafed, with spikes of red.
ref: 1869, Israel Wilkinson, “Sixth Generation”, in Memoirs of the Wilkinson Family in America. […], Jacksonville, Ill.: Davis & Penniman, printers, →OCLC, page 201:
text: They plunged into the narrow path between the tall sumach bushes, and were at once hidden in the gloom.
ref: 1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXIX, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 222:
text: He seemed like a broken reed / On the shore of a marshy lake, / In the fall when the shumacks bleed / 'Mid the withering grass of the brake.
ref: 1931, Gustav Melby, Light and Shade, St. Paul, Minn.: La Beau Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 70:
text: ―a scattering of man-high cedars (sharp cones), antlered sumac.
ref: 1946 January, William Carlos Williams, Paterson, New York, N.Y.: New Directions, →OCLC; Christopher MacGowan, editor, Paterson, revised edition, New York, N.Y.: New Directions, April 1995, →ISBN, book I:
text: There was a Steinway grand piano [...] a cherrywood writing table, and an assortment of floor lamps, table lamps, and "bridge" lamps that sprang up all over the congested inscape like sumac.
ref: 1957 May 4, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, “Zooey”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: New Yorker Magazine Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 32 (start of article):
text: A declaration of the places whence the goods ſubſcribed doe come. [...] Sumack, from Cyprus.
ref: 1584, William Barret[t], “The Money and Measures of Babylon, Balsara, and the Indies, with the Customes, &c. Written from Aleppo in Syria, Anno 1584”, in Richard Hakluyt, The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, […], London: […] George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, deputies to Christopher Barker, […], published 1589, →OCLC, page 219:
text: In dying a Cotton Gown Black. [...] For a gown, take half a pint of ground shumac and put it into a sieve, and place it in a pan; then pour boiling water on it, and let the shumac water run into the pan; then put in your gown, and let it steep for six hours; [...]
ref: 1817, William Tucker, “On Dying Cottons, Dresses, Bed-furniture, &c. &c.”, in The Family Dyer and Scourer; being a Complete Treatise on the Whole Art of Cleaning and Dying: […], London: Printed for Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, […], →OCLC, pages 102–103:
text: Long continued inability to retain the urine, more especially when associated with old age, is in general an incurable complaint. Benefit may be obtained, however, by the use of such remedies as a strong tea of sumac, aspen poplar, vegetable balsams, spirits of turpentine, and gum myrrh.
ref: 1850, J. W. Comfort, “Diseases of the Kidneys and Bladder”, in The Practice of Medicine on Thomsonian Principles, Adapted as well to the Use of Families as to that of the Practitioner. […], new and revised edition, Philadelphia, Pa.: For sale by A. Comfort, […], →OCLC, section VI (Incontinence of Urine. (Involuntary Flow of Urine.)), page 238:
text: I feel the wool give way / as if six centuries of feet / had worn it back to the hard / earth floor it was made to cover. // Six centuries of Turkish heels / on my spine-dyed back: / madder, genista, sumac— / one skin color in the soil.
ref: 1985, Peter Balakian, “The Oriental Rug”, in Robert Pack, Jay Parini, editors, Introspections: American Poets on One of Their Own Poems, Hanover, N.H.; London: University Press of New England for Middlebury College Press, published 1997, →ISBN, part II, page 30:
text: Tannin or tannic acid is a vegetable principle produced from nut-galls, catechu, or cutch, or terra japonica, oak-bark, divi divi, or the pod of the corsalpin coriaria, valonia, or the cup of the acorn from the prickly oak, sumack, cork-tree bark, mimosa, or wattle bark, larch bark, and many other astringent vegetable substances. This vegetable principle is employed in tanning leather.
ref: 1844 September 26, Alexander Turnbull, “Specification of the Patent Granted to Alexander Turnbull, […], for a New Mode or Method of More Expeditiously and Effectually Tanning Hides and Skins, and of Extracting and Separating the Catechuic Acid from the Tannic Acid in the Catechu or Terra Japonica, Used in Tanning.— […]”, in The Repertory of Patent Inventions, and Other Discoveries and Improvements in Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture; […], volume VII (Enlarged Series), number 3, London: Published for the proprietor, by Alexander Macintosh, […]; and sold by Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., […]; J[ohn] Weale, […]; and G. Hebert, […], published March 1846, →OCLC, page 168:
text: A great revolution is about to be witnessed in this tanning and dyeing material. Supplies have commenced to arrive from Virginia, United States, the quality of which is the best that has ever reached Great Britain. [...] In common fairness it must be added, however, that the very worst tests of the American are superior to the best of the Sicilian; this includes not only the sumacs of Virginia, but those of Maryland, Tennessee, &c. [Quoting Alexander Mcrae.]
ref: 1870 January 10, “American Sumac”, in J. R. Dodge, editor, Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1869, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 231:
text: [B]y tanned hides or ſkins, or by tanned pieces of hides or ſkins, are meant only ſuch as are tanned in wooſe made of the bark of trees, or ſumack, or whereof the principal ingredients ſhall be ſuch bark, or ſumack; [...]
ref: 1779, Gorges Edmond Howard, “Duties”, in An Abstract and Common Place of All the Irish, British, and English Statutes Relative to the Revenue of Ireland, and the Trade Connected therewith. […], London: Printed by the executors of David Hay, assignee of the late Boulter Grierson, […], →OCLC, page 183:
glosses: Any of various shrubs or small trees of the genus Rhus and certain other genera in Anacardiaceae
examples: .
glosses: Any of various shrubs or small trees of the genus Rhus and certain other genera in Anacardiaceae
particularly, one of species Rhus coriaria (tanner's sumac)
synonyms: elm-leaved sumac
Sicilian sumac
glosses: Dried and chopped-up leaves and stems of a plant of the genus Rhus, particularly tanner's sumac (see sense 1), used for dyeing and tanning leather or for medicinal purposes.
examples: text: The spices used in this bread are zaatar and sumack. [...] Sumack is a spice derived from the berries of a bush that grows wild in all Mediterranean areas. The berries are dried and crushed to form a coarse purple-red powder. It has a sour taste.
ref: 2006, Rivka Goldman, “Bread with Spices”, in Mama Nazima’s Jewish-Iraqi Cuisine: Low-fat, Low-cholesterol: Cuisine, History, Cultural References and Survival Stories of the Jewish-Iraqi, New York, N.Y.: Hippocrene Books, →ISBN, page 159:
text: Sumac is a berry from a bush which grows mostly in southern Italy and the Middle East. The berries are dried and crushed to make ground sumac, used in making many foods such as Yaprakh, Kinirmasee (fried artichoke) and salad.
ref: 2015, Ala Barzinji, “Simple Dishes”, in Traditional Kurdish Food: An Insight into Kurdish Culinary Heritage, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire: Matador, →ISBN, page 172:
glosses: A sour spice popular in the Eastern Mediterranean, made from the berries of tanner's sumac.
Hyponyms: taxonomic: Rhus trilobata
word: skunkbush
Derived terms: taxonomic: Searsia lancea
word: African sumac
taxonomic: Libidibia coriaria
word: American sumac
taxonomic: Rhodosphaera rhodanthema
word: Australian sumac
taxonomic: Rhus copallina
word: black sumac
taxonomic: Ailanthus altissima
word: Chinese sumac
taxonomic: Toxicodendron radicans
word: climbing sumac
taxonomic: Metopium toxiferum
word: coral sumac
taxonomic: Rhus microphylla
word: desert sumac
taxonomic: Rhus copallina
word: dwarf sumac
taxonomic: Cotinus coggygria
word: dyer's sumac
taxonomic: Rhus coriaria
word: elm-leaved sumac
taxonomic: Rhus virens
word: evergreen sumac
taxonomic: Rhus copallina
word: flameleaf sumac
taxonomic: Rhus aromatica
word: fragrant sumac
taxonomic: Rhus typhina
word: hairy sumac
taxonomic: Terminalia anogeissiana
word: Indian sumac
taxonomic: Toxicodendron vernicifluum
word: Japanese sumac
word: Kearney sumac
taxonomic: Rhus kearneyi
word: Kearney's sumac
taxonomic: Malosma laurina
alt: syn. Rhus laurina
word: laurel sumac
taxonomic: Rhus integrifolia
word: lemonade sumac
taxonomic: Rhus aromatica
word: lemon sumac
taxonomic: Rhus microphylla
word: littleleaf sumac
taxonomic: Rhus choriophylla
word: Mearn's sumac
taxonomic: Rhus michauxii
word: Michaux's sumac
taxonomic: Rhus muelleri
word: Müller's sumac
taxonomic: Searsia paniculata
word: panicled sumac
taxonomic: Rhus lentii
word: pink-flowering sumac
taxonomic: Toxicodendron vernix
word: poison sumac
taxonomic: Rhus potaninii
word: Potanin sumac
word: prairie sumac
taxonomic: Rhus lanceolata
word: prairie flameleaf sumac
taxonomic: Rhus punjabensis
word: Punjab sumac
taxonomic: Rhus typhina
word: red sumac
taxonomic: Osyris lanceolata
word: rock sumac
taxonomic: Rhus glabra
word: scarlet sumac
taxonomic: Rhus copallina
word: shining sumac
taxonomic: Rhus coriaria
word: Sicilian sumac
taxonomic: Rhus trilobata
word: skunkbush sumac
word: smooth sumac
taxonomic: Rhus glabra
word: sleek sumac
taxonomic: Rhus × pulvinata
word: species
word: staghorn sumac
taxonomic: Rhus typhina
word: stag's horn sumac
taxonomic: Rhus ovata
word: sugar sumac
word: sumacade
taxonomic: Colletes nudus
word: sumac cellophane bee
taxonomic: Epeolus lectoides
word: sumac cellophane-cuckoo bee
taxonomic: Blepharida rhois
word: sumac flea beetle
taxonomic: Asphondylia integrifoliae
word: sumac flowerbud gall midge
taxonomic: Melaphis rhois
word: sumac gall aphid
taxonomic: Pipiza puella
word: sumac gall pithead
taxonomic: Carolinaia rhois
word: sumac-grass aphid
taxonomic: Caloptilia rhoifoliella
word: sumac leafblotch miner
alt: Synolabus nigripes
word: sumac leafrolling weevil
taxonomic: Episimus argutana
word: sumac leaftier moth
taxonomic: Phaeocalicium curtisii
word: sumac needles
alt: Poblicia fuliginosa
word: sumac speckled lanternfly
taxonomic: Oberea ocellata
word: sumac stem borer
word: sumac wax
taxonomic: Toxicodendron vernix
word: swamp sumac
word: Swedish sumac
taxonomic: Rhus aromatica
word: sweet sumac
taxonomic: Rhus coriaria
word: tanner's sumac
taxonomic: Rhus trilobata
word: three-leaf sumac
taxonomic: Toxicodendron radicans
word: trailing sumac
taxonomic: Osyris lanceolata
word: Transvaal sumac
taxonomic: Rhus glabra
word: upland sumac
taxonomic: Rhus typhina
word: velvet sumac
taxonomic: Cotinus coggygria
word: Venetian sumac
taxonomic: Rhus typhina
word: Virginian sumac
taxonomic: Brunellia comocladiifolia
word: West Indian sumac
taxonomic: Rhus glabra
word: white sumac
taxonomic: Rhus copallina
word: winged sumac