Jalapeño, banana, cayenne pepper, chili, and habanero peppers
31 July 2023
Capsicum is a genus of plants, native to the Americas but now cultivated globally, that produce peppers. The origin of the name is somewhat uncertain, but it is usually said to come from the Latin capsa, meaning case or box, a reference to the seed pod. This etymology was first promulgated by physician Jean Ruel in his 1536 De natura stirpium libri tres:
Nec ab re id esse putauerim, recentioribus Graecis capsicon appellatur, semina in ordinem digesta, quibusdam thecis inuoluentibus, quasi capsis congerantur
(Nor would I have thought this to be the case, for in the modern Greek it is called capsicon, the seeds being arranged in order wrapped in some boxes [thecis], as if they were collected in boxes [capsis].)
But an alternative explanation, one promulgated by botanist Caspard Bauhin in 1596, is that it comes from the Greek κάπτω (kápto), meaning “I bite”:
καψικόν [Kapsikón] Actuario, fortè quod semen comestum mordeat, à κάπτω [kápto] mordeo
(καψικόν in Actuarius, perhaps because the seed once eaten causes a sting, from κάπτω I bite).
But both Ruel and Bauhin were referencing Byzantine physician Joannes Actuarius (c. 1275–c. 1328), who was discussing cardamom. So the name was originally an Old World one applied to the plants of the New World, a not uncommon occurrence.
Capsicum also appears in English in the sixteenth century, again in reference to Old World plants. The earliest English use I know of is from 1559 in a translation of Konrad Gesner’s The Treasure of Euonymus:
I am wont to make an oyll of siedes and the reed codes [i.e., gum, resin] of Capsicum, or Cardamomu[m] Arabicu[m]: other of the codes therof alone, put in oyll, whiche is wont to be vsed in place of oyll of Peper, or also of Euphorbium, if it be put in in more abundance, for it is far more vehement then Peper. With vs (they call it reed Peper, sum of the co[m]mun people call it Siliquastrum, but not ryghtly) but fewe of those silique [i.e., seed pod] or codes do wax rype, bycause of the hasty coold of haruest. But vnrype codes also, ha[n]ged in stoues a few daies and dried, may well be put vnto oyll. For they haue sharpnes inough: whiche is not to be found in the hool pla[n]t besydes, when as the leest heares or stringes are without any taste, and the leeues and stem are vnsauery: but in the codes is so excelle[n]t a tast, that it is worthy to be wondred at. Sum bycause of the vehement heat therof reken it almost emo[n]gst poysons, as Cardan: whiche I prayse not. Nether was theeuer any man said that fyer was venemous, burn it neuer so much: when it hath no venemous qualitie besydes. I haue my self vsed both the siedes of this Capsicum and the codes, without harm in potage but in a small quantitie.
Use of capsicum in reference to the fruit, the peppers, rather than the plant genus dates to the eighteenth century. From Bradley Richard’s 1725 translation of the French Dictionaire Oeconomique:
The Indian Capsicum, tho’ superlatively hot and burning, yet by Art and Mixture is render’d not only safe but very agreeable in our Sallets.
Derived from the genus name is the name for the oil or chemical substance that lends the heat to the peppers, capsicine or capsaicin. This word appears in Togno and Durand’s 1829 Manual of Materia Medica and Pharmacy:
The aromatic odour coincides generally with the hot and pungent taste, and in many cases, it proceeds also from a volatile oil, to the presence of which most aromatic vegetables owe their stimulating property. Mace, balsamic and resinous odours, and some others, have a great analogy to the one just mentioned, and belong also more particularly to the class of excitants. There is however a certain number of these substances which have scarcely any odour, such as capsicum, &c.
And later in the book he writes:
Cayenne pepper contains a peculiar substance discovered by Forchhammer, and called Capsicin by Dr. C. Conwell; a red colouring matter, a small quantity of a matter containing nitrogen, a mucilage and some salts, especially nitrate of potassa. Dr. C. obtains, by means of ether, a liquid of a fine reddish-yellow colour, which he calls ethereal of capsicum, and which is eminently endowed with all the stimulant and acrid properties of the Cayenne pepper.
Sources:
Bauhin, Caspard. Phytopinax. Basel: Sebastian Henricpetri, 1596, 3.1 155. ProQuest: Early European Books—Collection 5.
Bradley, Richard. Dictionaire Oeconomique. Or, the Family Dictionary, vol. 2 of 2. London: D. Midwinter, 1725,. s.v. sallet. Gale Primary Sources: Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Gesner, Konrad. The Treasure of Euonymus. Peter Morwyng, trans. London: John Daie, 1559, 341–42. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Languagehat.com. “Capsicum,” 16 June 2022.
Merriam-Webster.com, 4 July 2023, s.v. capsicum, n.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. capsicum, n.; third ediction, March 2002, s.v. capsaicin, n.
Ruel, Jean. De natura stirpium libri tres. Paris, Simon de Colines, 1536, 379–80. ProQuest: Early European Books—Collection 8.
Togno, Joseph and E. Durand. A Manual of Materia Medica and Pharmacy. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey, 1829, 22, 180. HathiTrust Digital Archive. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015047255321&view=1up&seq=7
Photo credit: Ryan Bushby, 2006. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license.