Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.13042

c10.13042

**SANDAL, SANDLE, SANDERS, SANDAL-WOOD**, s. From Low Latin *santalum*, in Greek *σάνταλον*, and in later Greek *σάνδανον*; coming from the Arab. *sandal*, and that from Skt. *chandana*. The name properly belongs to the fragrant wood of the *Santalum album*, L. Three woods bearing the name *santalum*, white, yellow, and red, were in officinal use in the Middle Ages. But the name Red Sandalwood, or Red Sanders, has been long applied, both in English and in the Indian vernaculars, to the wood of *Pterocarpus santalina*, L., a tree of S. India, the wood of which is inodorous, but which is valued for various purposes in India (pillars, turning, &c.), and is exported as a dye-wood. According to Hanbury and Flückiger this last was the sanders so much used in the cookery of the Middle Ages for colouring sauces, &c. In the opinion of those authorities it is doubtful whether the red sandal of the medieval pharmacologists was a kind of the real odorous sandal-wood, or was the wood of *Pteroc. santal.* It is possible that sometimes the one and sometimes the other was meant. For on the one hand, even in modern times, we find Milburn (see below) speaking of the three colours of the real sandal-wood; and on the other hand we find Matthioli in the 16th century speaking of the red sandal as inodorous.