[Eaglewood and eagle]

The etymology of eaglewood (chén xiāng, --) and its related terms with particular reference to its relation to eagle (aquilaria) is discussed. It is pointed out that this fragrant wood has nothing to do with eagle. A Portuguese aguila transcribed from akil (Malay, the name of wood), perhaps underwent phonetic traction to aguia (Portuguese, eagle) in the process of being translated into French. Thus pau d'aguila (Portuguese) was transformed to bois d'aigle (French, aigle=eagle), which led to eagle-wood (English) and Adlerholz (German).