nicotine: [19] Nicotine gets its name ultimately from Jean Nicot, 16th-century French ambassador in Lisbon, who in 1560 got hold of some samples of the new ‘tobacco’ and sent them to the French queen Catherine de Medici. The tobacco-plant was named herba nicotiana ‘herb of Nicot’ in his honour (whence the modern English term nicotiana for all plants of this genus), and nicotine was derived from nicotiana, originally in French, for the addictive alkaloid obtained from it.
