What does eaglewood mean?
Eaglewood is the English name for one of the rarest and most expensive natural raw materials in the world: the dark, fragrant, resin-saturated heartwood that forms inside trees of the genus Aquilaria when they are infected by a particular mould. In response to the infection, the tree produces a dense, aromatic resin, transforming pale, scentless timber into a substance treasured across Asia and the Middle East as incense, as an essential oil in fine perfumery, and in traditional medicine. The material is far better known today under its alternative names agarwood, aloeswood, and oud. Because only a minority of infected trees produce high-quality resin, wild eaglewood became severely overharvested, and Aquilaria species are now protected, with most supply coming from cultivated plantations. The word itself appears chiefly in botanical, historical, and trade writing rather than everyday conversation, lending it a slightly antiquarian flavour.
The dark, aromatic, resinous heartwood produced by Aquilaria trees in response to fungal infection, used as incense and in perfumery.
"The temple altar was thick with the smoke of burning eaglewood."
Also called agarwood, aloeswood, or oud.
An Aquilaria tree that yields such aromatic wood.
"Planters grafted young eaglewood saplings into the hillside grove."
The plural typically refers to individual trees of the genus rather than to quantities of the wood itself, which is treated as uncountable.
"The reserve protects mature eaglewoods deep within the forest."
Mouldy wood shouldn't be precious — but when infection strikes an Aquilaria tree, the resulting resinous eaglewood can sell for more per ounce than gold.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of eaglewood
Eaglewood is a compound of the English nouns 'eagle' and 'wood', attested in European texts from around the early modern period as a rendering of the fragrant timber traded from Southeast Asia. The name likely arose through folk etymology: it corresponds to earlier forms such as Portuguese 'pau de águia', which themselves appear to be corruptions of Asian trade names for the same wood, such as Malay-Indonesian 'gaharu' and Sanskrit-derived 'agaru' (whence 'agarwood' and 'aloeswood'). Thus the 'eagle' element has no true connection to the bird; it is an inherited distortion of a foreign word for the resinous timber.
How eaglewood is actually used
A somewhat literary and trade-oriented term; 'agarwood' is the more common name internationally today, while 'oud' dominates in perfumery. 'Eaglewood' is a traditional English rendering found in older botanical and commercial texts.