- lotus (n.)
- 1540s, from Latin lotus, from Greek lotos, name used for several plants before it came to mean Egyptian white lotus (a sense attested in English from 1580s); perhaps from a Semitic source (compare Hebrew lot "myrrh"). The yogic sense is attested from 1848. Lotus-eaters (1812) are from Greek lotophagoi, mentioned in "Odyssey," book IX.
