caoutchouc

American  

[kou-chook, kou-chook] / ˈkaʊ tʃʊk, kaʊˈtʃuk /

noun

1. rubber.

2. pure rubber.

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caoutchouc British  

/ -ˈtʃʊk, kaʊˈtʃuːk, ˈkaʊtʃuːk, -tʃʊk /

noun

1. another name for rubber 1

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Etymology

Origin of caoutchouc

1765–75; < French < Spanish cauchuc (now obsolete), probably ultimately < an Indian language of lowland tropical South America

Example Sentences

In the 1700s, a French explorer brought the name "caoutchouc" from a local language: it meant "weeping wood".

From BBC • Jul. 23, 2019

We were a semi-scientific group, looking for orchids and caoutchouc and various other things which could be transported down the Amazon and turned into good dollars at any port on the Atlantic coast.

From The Cassowary What Chanced in the Cleft Mountains by Waterloo, Stanley

Besides making the new belts, therefore, Munday had mended the old ones, giving all the shells an additional coating of caoutchouc, and strengthening the sipos that attached them to one another.

From Afloat in the Forest A Voyage among the Tree-Tops by Reid, Mayne

It was like a double waistcoat, made of linen prepared with a solution of india rubber, the seams being likewise coated with caoutchouc, and the whole rendered perfectly air-tight.

From The Swiss Family Robinson or, Adventures on a Desert Island by Wyss, Jean Rudolph

The correct name of the material now is caoutchouc, though its common name is India-rubber or simply rubber.

From Great Inventions and Discoveries by Piercy, Willis Duff