Named after a French ambassador who gifted tobacco to the queen in 1560, convinced it was medicine.
A toxic, addictive alkaloid found in tobacco and related plants, acting as a stimulant in small doses.
From Modern Latin nicotiana (the tobacco plant), named after Jean Nicot (1530–1600), French diplomat and scholar who introduced tobacco to France in 1560 after encountering it in Portugal. Nicot sent tobacco seeds and leaves to Catherine de Medici, promoting the plant as a medicinal cure. The genus Nicotiana was named by Linnaeus in his 1753 Species Plantarum. The alkaloid nicotine was isolated from Nicotiana tabacum in 1828 by German
Jean Nicot promoted tobacco as a cure for headaches, cancer, and plague. He would be dismayed to learn that the addictive compound named after him is now known to be one of the most habit-forming substances on Earth, and the plant he championed as medicine kills millions annually.