タバコ

1607 is an early dated point for タバコ: 精選版日本国語大辞典 cites 慶長日記 for 此頃たはこと云事はやる. The source form listed is Portuguese tabaco, with English tobacco also noted. Portuguese dictionaries such as Priberam define tabaco as Nicotiana plants and prepared leaves for smoking or chewing; Priberam traces Portuguese tabaco through Spanish tabaco. The plant name Nicotiana tabacum preserves the Latin botanical label. The word entered Japan in the Nanban trade period, around the late 16th and early 17th centuries, with Iberian merchants and missionaries. Japanese sources place import in the Azuchi-Momoyama period and cultivation in the Keicho years, 1596-1615. The Tokugawa shogunate issued repeated bans, yet use expanded in the Edo period. Along with older loans such as カルタ and カステラ, タバコ belongs to an older layer of European loanwords in Japanese. Modern Japanese タバコ covers the plant, processed tobacco, a cigarette, and the smoking habit. English tobacco often names the plant or product, while an individual item is usually a cigarette. 紙巻きタバコ became important after brands such as 天狗タバコ appeared in 1877. Portuguese tabaco can also mean a pack or the habit of smoking, so Japanese is closer to Portuguese than to English in everyday range.