Cloves (Syzygium aromaticum [L.] Merr. et Perry)

Flower buds. The buds are harvested shortly before the flower would open.

Essential oil is also produced from the leaves, although I did not find any re­ferences to their culinary use (the leaves are certainly aromatic enough to make them poten­tially inter­esting). The ripe fruits (mother of clove) are highly aromatic, but are (at best) used locally in the production areas.

Myrtaceae (myrtle family).

Ripening mother of clove

Drying cloves in Zanzibar Photo © Nicole Meyer

Strong­ly aro­matic and very inten­sive fra­grance; fiery and burn­ing taste.

The content of es­sential oil in cloves of good quality may exceed 15%. The oil itself is domi­nated by eugenol (70 to 85%), eugenol acetate (15%) and β‑caryo­phyllene (5 to 12%), which together make up 99% of the oil.

Cloves contain about 2% of the triterpene oleanolic acid.

Drying cloves in Zanzibar Photo © Nicole Meyer

The clove tree is en­demic to the North Moluccas (Indo­nesia) and was of old culti­vated on the islands of Ternate, Tidore, Bacan and the West coast of Halma­hera. The Dutch extended culti­vation to several other islands in the Moluccas, particularly Ambon, but only after the end of the Dutch mono­poly (18.th century), clove trees were intro­duced to other countries.

The flag of the former sultanate of Zanzibar and Pemba

The most impor­tant pro­duction area today is the island of Pemba, which together with Zanzibar forms one part of the state of Tanzania. The whole island of Pemba is covered with clove gardens, and it is reported that the island can be smelled on any ship approaching it. The short-lived Sultanate of Zanzibar and Pemba (1963–1964) had a flag showing two clove buds.

Cloves are also grown on other East African islands, most notably, Madagascar. In Indonesia, clove production has recovered from poor decades after World War II, such that the country was forced to import cloves to satisfy the huge domestic market. Since the 1980s, Indonesia is again producing in large scale, although little of the Indonesian crop gets exported.

Old clove tree

Ripe clove fruits (mother of clove)

Clove trees in Northern Sulawesi

The name clove, as well as Spanish clavo, Catalan clau, Por­tuguese cravinho and Tagalog clovas, ulti­mately derives from Latin clavus nail (be­cause of shape resem­blance). The word made its way into English via Old French clou. The word clove is related to the verb cleave (which is what you can do with a nail) and therefore also to clove as in a clove of garlic. See there for further connections of clavus.

Most Germanic and Germanic-influenced tongues have a different word for clove: German Nelke, Norwegian nellik, Danish nellike, Icelandic negull, Swedish neijlikor, Yiddish negelen [נעגעלען], Finnish neilikka, Estonian nelgi and Sranan nagri. These are related to German Nagel, nail.

Nail and its cognates in Germanic languages (Old High German nagal, English nail, Icelandic nagli, Swedish nagel) basically means either nail of finger or toe or slim pointed piece of metal; the second meaning is younger and does not appear outside the Germanic languages: Old Irish ingen, Latin unguis nail, Latvian nags hoof, Greek onyx [ὄνυξ] claw, Sanskrit anghri [अंघ्रि] foot. The vowel variations made reconstruction of the Proto-Indo–European root behind all these forms somewaht difficult, but laryngal theory suggests H₃NOGʰ or H₃N̥Gʷʰ (with possible extensions) nail, claw as a reasonable guess.

Cloves are named nail spice in other languages, too; for example, take Russian gvozdika [гвоздика] which comes from gvozd’ [гвоздь] nail. As another example, one finds a group of related names in Western to Central Asia: Georgian mikhak’i [მიხაკი], Azeri mixək and Farsi mikhak [میخک] belong to the same kin as Azeri mıx and Farsi mikh [ميخ] nail. Similar names for nail are found in several Turk languages (Turkish mıh and Uighur mih), suggesting that the name is ultimately of Altaic origin.

Clove flowers

Unripe clove buds

In the same spi­rit, Hebrew tsiporen [ציפורן] also has two mean­ings finger­nail and clove, although it is not related to any of the former men­tioned lan­guages. In its Old Hebrew form tsipporen [צפרן, צִפֹּרֶן], that word also ap­pears in the Old Testa­ment, but only in the mean­ings finger nail and tip, point, not in re­ference to the spice. It is be­lieved that cloves came to the Medi­terra­nean no sooner than the first or second century B.C.

Unripe clove buds

Another unre­lated lan­guage names cloves as nails: Basque iltze-kanela literally means cinnamon nails (iltzatu nail); so the spice was named both for its shape and, even if in­accu­rately, for its fra­grance (it can also be called iltzea for short). See Indo­nesian cinnamon for the etymo­logy of the second part of this name.

German Gewürz­nelke, Dutch kruidnagel or Swedish krydd­nejlikor are emphatic formations meaning condiment clove. For the determinative elements in these compounds, see mugwort for the German and savory for the Dutch and Swedish names.

Clover flower close-up

Clove flower

In Old Greek, the clove spice was known as karyo­phyllon [καρυό­φυλλον], which ap­pears to be a com­pound of two Greek nouns: karyon [κάρυον] nut and phyllon [φύλλον] leaf. Yet such a compound is poorly motivated: Clove is neither nut nor leaf, and does not even look so. More­over, practi­cally all names of foreign spices in Greek tongue are loans from languages of the trading peoples (see cinnamon, long pepper, cassia, sesame, ginger and malabathron for examples). So I suspect that karyo­phyllon is, in fact, a corrupted name of cloves in a tongue of South or South East Asia, probably India. For example, there is the Sanskrit name katuka phala [कटुक फल] pungent fruit (or pungent nutmeg) given to an unidentified aromatic plant (both elements of this name have no Indo–European etymology, and it is supposed that they stem from an unknown Indian language, possibly Dravidian or Munda). Since cloves would probably have been traded in the seaports of South India, it is interesting to note that the modern Dravidian languages still have remarkable similar names with a consonant pattern K–R–[PB]: Tamil karambu [கராம்பு], Malayalam karayanpu [കറയാന്പൂ] and also the Indo-European Singhalese karabu [කරාබු]. Malayalam even shows the palatal glide present in the Greek word, in the right position.

The search for a possible source of Greek karyo­phyllon yields further hits in all major language families of South East Asia: Thai kanphlu [กานพลู], Lao kanphu [ກ້ານພູ], Khmer klampu [ក្លាំពូ] and Tagalog klabong. While it would be tempting to add Japanese kurobu [クローブ] to that list, this name is just a modern adaption of the completely unrelated English clove as it is sometimes found on the net; the traditional Japanese name of clove derives from Chinese (see below).

Sterile branch of clove

Karyophyllon [Καρυό­φυλλον] is not only direct pro­genitor of modern Greek gari­falo [γαρί­φαλο] clove, but was also, via Latin gariofilum, transferred to some present-day Romance lan­guages, e. g., Italian garo­fano, and French girofle. Further related words for clove are Turkish karanfil, Serbian karan­filić [каран­филић], Bulgarian karamfil [карам­фил], Kazakh qalampır [қалампыр], Dhivehi karanfoo [ކަރަންފޫ], Swahili karafuu and several Semitic names, e. g., Arabic al-qaranful [القرنفل] and Amharic krinfud [ቅርንፉድ].

Sterile branch of clove

Branch with clove flowers

Young clove buds

In some lan­guages, cloves share the name with the fragrant ornamental carnation or pink (Dianthus caryo­phyllatus), e. g., German Nelke, Italian garofano, Greek garifallo [γαρύ­φαλλο], Bela­rusian gvazdziki [гваздзікі] and Russian gvozdika [гвоздика]. In English, the orna­mental is also known as gilly­flower which is etymo­logically related to Greek karyo­phyllon and thus akin to all the names men­tioned in the pre­vious para­graph.

Another group of names for clove are found in India, e. g., Pashto and Urdu lung [لونګ, لونگ], Kashmiri rong [رونگ], Hindi and Punjabi laung [लौंग, ਲੌਂਗ], Gujarati laving [લવિંગ], Bengali labango [লবংগ] and Telugu lavangalu [లవంగము]. These names have no discernible etymlogy in the Indo–Aryan (or Dravdic) languages and are in all likelihood loans; they might be distantly related to the group of karyo­phyllon and kanplu. I found the suggestion that they derive from a Malaiic language, which would bring us again to the vicinity of Tagalog klabong. Note, however, that cloves are called cengke in both modern Indonesian and Malay.

The Tamil and Ma­layalam names ilavangam [இலவங்கம், ഇലവംഗം] are part of the group of names quoted in the pre­vious para­graph. Sur­prisingly, their prime denotation is cinnamon tree, alt­hough, according to dictio­naries, they may mean clove on occasion. Such behaviour again points to these names being loanwords that just got attached to whatever aromatic comes first to the mind; also, these languages use an epenthic i regularly whenever a loanword starts with a consonant (such as L,R) or cluster that is not allowed word-initially.

The botanical genus name Syzygium derives from Greek syn [σύν] together, with and zygon [ζυγόν] yoke (from zeug­nynai [ζευγνύναι] join). The name refers to the petals, which are merged (joined) into a cap-like structure. Being fused, they cannot open at the onset of flowering but seperate from the plant and fall to thee ground; the showy part of the flower is made entirely of the anthers.

Clove berries (mother of clove)

The Chinese term for cloves is ding xiang [丁香], also trans­cribed ting hsiang and in count­less other variants. Similar to English (which has the gilly­flower complication and other European tongues, Chinese uses the same word for a fragrant ornamental flower, in this case lilac (Syringa spp.). In Chinese, the lilac genus is termed ou ding xiang [欧丁香], roughly European clove, and the single species get compound designations, e. g., bao ma ding xiang [暴马丁香] for the species native to East Asia (S. reticulata). In the meaning clove, the word was was trans­ferred to Viet­namese as dinh huong [đinh hương] and to Korean as chong-hyang [정향] The second element xiang [香] means spice, fragrance and is often found in the names of aromatics or well-flavoured foods; it also forms the first part in the toponym Hongkong (Cantonese heung gong [香港], Mandarin xiang gang [香港] fragrant harbour).

Ship model made from dried cloves (handicraft of the Moluccas)

Clove berries (mother of clove)

The first part of that name, ding [丁], typi­cally means small thing, chunk; it also de­notes a specific cut­ting technique to chop meats into rather small pieces, and a male sur­name; it does not mean nail. Yet, I think that the original meaning of ding xiang might also have been nail spice: First, the shape of the Chinese character 丁 evolved from a nail, and the modern language has a homo­phonous word ding [钉] nail (the nail character is com­posed of jin [金] metal with the phonetic com­plement ding [丁] and thus means a thing made from metal and spoken ding). Second, the Korean chong-hyang is written 釘香 in the now obsolete Sino–Korean writing, using the traditional variant of the nail character. Perhaps, such a spelling was also possible in an earlier stage of Chinese, although 钉香 is not valid in the contemporary language.

As usual, the situation is even more complicated in Japanese. There is a term spelt identically to the Chinese and pronounced cho-ko [丁香, ちょうこう, チョウコウ]. But this is less commonly used than cho-ji [丁子, 丁字, ちょうじ, チョウジ], which has two Kanji spellings (the first one is more frequent). The Kanji at the second position just means small thing.

Indian Spices: Cloves (indianetzone.com) Ilkas und Ullis Kochecke: Nelke (rezkonv.de via archive.org) A Pinch of Cloves (www.apinchof.com) The Epicentre: Cloves Chinese Herb Database: Cloves Medical Spice Exhibit: Cloves chemikalienlexikon.de: Acetyleugenol Transport Information Service: Cloves Sorting Syzygium names (www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au) The Mythic Chinese Unicorn zhi: The Cinnamon Route (via web.archive.org) The Economist: A Taste of Adventure