Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Coca |
CocaNoun1. A South American shrub whose leaves are chewed by natives of the Andes; a source of cocaine. 2. Dried leaves of the coca plant (and related plants that also contain cocaine); chewed by Andean people for their simulating effect. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "coca" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1900. (references) |
Etymology: Coca \Co"ca\, noun. [Spanish expression, from native name.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Health | Any of several South American shrubs of the Erythroxylon genus (and family) that yield cocaine; the leaves are chewed with alum for CNS stimulation. (references) |
Medicine | An acute keratoconjunctivitis, highly contagious, characterized by edema of the eyelids and the conjunctiva, subepithelial corneal infiltration, petechial hemorrhages, hyperemia and involvement of the regional lymph nodes, considered to be due to a virus. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Coca (Erythroxylon coca) is a plant which is traditionally cultivated in the lower altitudes of the eastern slopes of the Andes. Since time immemorial, its leaves have been used as a stimulant by the indigenous people of Peru, Bolivia, and northern Argentina; it also has religious and symbolic significance (see Cocomama). Since the 1980s, the cultivation of coca has become controversial because it is used for the manufacture of the illegal drug cocaine.
Botanical aspects
Coca belongs to the natural family Erythroxylaceae. It resembles a blackthorn bush, and grows to a height of 6 or 8 ft. The branches are straight, and the leaves, which have a lively green tint, are thin, opaque, oval, more or less tapering at the extremities. A marked characteristic of the leaf is an areolated portion bounded by two longitudinal curved lines once on each side of the midrib, and more conspicuous on the under face of the leaf.The flowers are small, and disposed in little clusters on short stalks; the corolla is composed of five yellowish-white petals, the anthers are heart-shaped, and the pistil consists of three carpels united to form a three-chambered ovary. The flowers are succeeded by red berries.
Good samples of the dried leaves are uncurled, are of a deep green on the upper, and a grey-green on the lower surface, and have a strong tea-like odor; when chewed they produce a faint numbness in the mouth, and have a pleasant, pungent taste. Bad specimens have a camphoraceous smell and a brownish colour, and lack the pungent taste.
Cultivation
The seeds are sown in December and January in small plots (almacigas) sheltered from the sun, and the young plants when from 1 1/8 to 2 ft. in height are placed in holes (aspi), or, if the ground is level, in furrows (uachos) in carefully-weeded soil. The plants thrive best in hot, damp situations, such as the clearings of forests; but the leaves most preferred are obtained in drier localities, on the sides of hills. The leaves are gathered from plants varying in age from one and a half to upwards of forty years. They are considered ready for plucking when they break on being bent. The first and most abundant harvest is in March, after the rains; the second is at the end of June, the third in October or November. The green leaves (matu) are spread in thin layers on coarse woollen cloths and dried in the sun; they are then packed in sacks, which, in order to preserve the quality of the leaves, must be kept from damp.
Traditional use
In the Andes, the Indians traditionally carried a woven pouch called a chuspa or huallqui in which they kept a day's supply of coca leaves, along with a small amount of ilucta or uipta, which is made from pulverized unslaked lime or from the ashes of the quinoa plant. A tiny quantity of ilucta is ingested with the coca leaves; it softens their astrigent flavor and activates the alkaloids.The activity of chewing coca is called chacchar or acullicar.
Coca was employed as an offering to the Sun, or to produce smoke at the great sacrifices; and the priests, it was believed, must chew it during the performance of religious ceremonies, otherwise the gods would not be propitiated. Coca is still held in superstitious veneration among the Peruvians, and is believed by the miners of Cerro de Pasco to soften the veins of ore, if masticated and thrown upon them.
The parmacologically active ingredient of coca is the alkaloid cocaine which is found in the amount of about 0.2% in fresh leaves. Besides cocaine, the coca leaf contains several other alkaloids.
based on an article from 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
See Further
- Coca eradication
External link
- The Coca Museum (A private museum in La Paz)
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Coca."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
coca | English | Cocaine | Medicine |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonym: CocaSynonym: Erythroxylon coca (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Coca |
| English words defined with "coca": c, Coca Cola, cocain, cocaine, coke, Cuca ♦ Hygrine ♦ snow. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "coca": Cocagne. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Coca" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. French (Coca, coke), German (coke), Italian (Coca), Portuguese (apple and cherry ermine moths, bernice, bernie's flake, big C, blow, bouncing power, cadillac, champagne of drugs, charley, charlie, coca, coca bush, coke, dama blanca, flake, gold dust, green gold, happy trails, her, jam, lady, nose candy, pimp's drug, she, small ermine moth, snow, stardust, tool, toot, uptown, white girl, white lady), Spanish (bun, Coca, coke, head, kink, Napper), Swedish (Coca). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I suck 'em down like Coca Cola (Seinfeld; writing credit: Andreas Lenze; Bea Schmidt) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Miss Coca Cola (1955) The Imogene Coca Show (1954) MTV Coca Cola Report (1990) Atrapados en la coca (1990) Coca y puro Café (1984) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Outline of Coca Plant. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | Coca Leaves. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | Leaves of Peruvian Coca, Natural Size. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | Coca Wine. : For Fatigue of Mind and Body. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | Coca (Segovia). Fachada principal del castillo / J. Laurent. Madrid. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Colored boys playing on top of Coca Cola stand. Little Rock, Arkansas. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Coca Cola. General landscape near Black Mountain. North Carolina. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Steiner Plastics, Oyster Bay. Coca Cola sign. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Coca cola" by Michele Falzone Commentary: "From the Ad in Piccadilly Circus, London." | "Cola bottle" by Kevin Blomqvist Commentary: "An old style coca cola glas bottle." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Pure cocaine was first extracted from the leaf of the Erythroxylon coca bush, which grows primarily in Peru and Bolivia, in the mid-19th century. (references) | |
The pure chemical, cocaine hydrochloride, has been an abused substance for more than 100 years, and coca leaves, the source of cocaine, have been ingested for thousands of years. (references) | ||
Business | Coca Cola ($500 million) -- Coca Cola, Fanta, Sprite and other products are already produced in 16 areas in China. (references) | |
The recently privatized utility and oil companies, and other large corporations such as Coca Cola, Phillip Morris, Molinos S.A., all with an extensive distribution network throughout the country (exposing company assets and staff to risk), are principal purchasers of security products, especially GPS and CCTV. Banks are also among the most important end-users of security equipment and have been expanding their use of sophisticated access control equipment, alarm systems and remote sensors. (references) | ||
Economic History | Bolivia | Also, his administration was extremely reluctant to pursue net eradication of illegal coca. (references) |
Peru | During the 1980s, cultivation of illicit coca was established in large areas on the eastern Andean slope. (references) | |
Venezuela | Venezuela is a minor source country for opium poppy and coca but a major transit country for cocaine and heroin. (references) | |
Human Rights | Bolivia | There was violence during the year against Government security forces and coca eradication crews. (references) |
Bolivia | Illegal coca growers alleged that Huanca then was shot again by security forces while lying wounded. (references) | |
Bolivia | On October 4, there were unconfirmed reports that eradication forces in the Chapare had shot and wounded two coca growers. (references) | |
Indigenous People | Bolivia | Specific offenders allegedly are illegal coca growers and timber pirates. (references) |
Political Economy | Bolivia | The police provide security for coca eradication work crews in the Chapare region, a tropical area where illegal coca is grown. (references) |
Colombia | A highly successful aerial eradication effort took place in southern Colombia in the first four months of 2001 in which 30,000 hectares of coca were sprayed. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Colombia | A 1996 study by the national Human Rights Ombudsman of child labor in Putumayo department found that 22 percent of children between the ages of 5 and 18 were full-time coca pickers. (references) |
Peru | Other children reportedly are employed at times in dangerous occupations or in high-risk environments, such as informal gold mining, garbage collection, loading and unloading produce in markets, brick making, coca cultivation, or work in stone quarries and fireworks factories, among others. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Coca" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 54.12% of the time. "Coca" is used about 194 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 54.12% | 105 | 31,781 |
| Noun (singular) | 45.88% | 89 | 34,931 |
| Total | 100.00% | 194 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "coca" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Coca | Last name | 1,000 | 15,887 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
Expressions using "coca": coca bush ♦ Coca Cola ♦ E Coca ♦ Erythroxylon coca ♦ mexican coca. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "coca": coca-barons, Coca-coal, Coca-Cola, coca-colonial, coca-dollars, coca-growing, coca-producing. | |
Ending with "coca": anti-coca. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
coca cola | 8,056 | coca cola wallpaper | 84 |
coca cola collectible | 403 | coca cola bottling company | 81 |
coca cola company | 357 | canada coca cola | 79 |
coca cola bear | 344 | coca cola museum | 78 |
coca cola.com | 274 | coca cola cooler | 67 |
coca cola memorabilia | 254 | coca cola racing | 64 |
coca cola history | 229 | coca cola bottling | 63 |
coca cola enterprise | 218 | coca cola flag six | 62 |
coca | 206 | coca cola light | 58 |
coca cola racing family | 182 | coca cola vending machine | 57 |
coca cola product | 157 | coca plant | 55 |
world of coca cola | 147 | coca cola antique | 54 |
coca cola logo | 137 | coca cola merchandise | 54 |
coca cola bottle | 131 | coca cola store | 53 |
coca cola job | 121 | coca cola cake | 52 |
coca cola co | 118 | coca cola machine | 49 |
coca cola picture | 111 | coca cola font | 47 |
coca cola employment | 105 | coca cola foundation | 46 |
coca cola screensaver | 102 | coca cola sign | 44 |
coca cola scholarship | 98 | atlanta coca cola | 43 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "coca"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | Koka. (various references) | |
Arabic | الكوكة نبتة, أوراق الكوكة المجففة. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | Кока. (various references) | |
Chinese | 古柯. (various references) | |
Czech | Koka. (various references) | |
Danish | tygning af kokablade (coca leaf chewing), kokabusk (coca bush), kokabladetyggere (coca chewer, coca-leaf chewer, coquero). (various references) | |
Dutch | cocapruimer (coca chewer, coca-leaf chewer, coquero), cocaplant (coca bush), kauwen van cocabladeren (coca leaf chewing). (various references) | |
Farsi | کاکاءو (Cacao, Chocolate, Cocoa). (various references) | |
French | Coca (coke). (various references) | |
German | Koka. (various references) | |
Greek | Ερυθρόξυλο. (various references) | |
Hungarian | Kókacserje. (various references) | |
Italian | Coca. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | コカの木 (coca tree, Coca-Cola, cocaine, cockpit, cocoa, COCOM, COCOM list, Coordinating Committee for Export to Communist Area, coquette, coquetterie, coquettish, cuckoo, obsessively trend-conscious teen-age girls who may offer themselves for enjou kousai with older men in order to finance their lifestyle, shell). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | コカのき (coca tree), コカコーラ (Coca-Cola). (various references) | |
Korean | 코카나무. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ocacay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | coca (apple and cherry ermine moths, bernice, bernie's flake, big C, blow, bouncing power, cadillac, champagne of drugs, charley, charlie, coca bush, coke, dama blanca, flake, gold dust, green gold, happy trails, her, jam, lady, nose candy, pimp's drug, she, small ermine moth, snow, stardust, tool, toot, uptown, white girl, white lady). (various references) | |
Quechua | kuka. (various references) | |
Russian | Кока, кока. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | koka (coccus). (various references) | |
Spanish | Coca (bun, coke, head, kink, Napper), Fruta De Coca. (various references) | |
Swedish | Coca. (various references) | |
Turkish | Yapraklarından Kokain Çıkarılan Bitki, Koka. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | Кока. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "coca": cocain, cocaine, cocaines, cocainization, cocainizations, cocainize, cocainized, cocainizes, cocainizing, cocains, cocaptain, cocaptained, cocaptaining, cocaptains, cocarboxylase, cocarboxylases, cocarcinogen, cocarcinogenic, cocarcinogens, cocas, cocatalyst, cocatalysts. (additional references) | |
Words containing "coca": ascocarp, ascocarpic, ascocarps, ecocatastrophe, ecocatastrophes. (additional references) | |
| |
"Coca" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Caac, Caca, cacad, cacah, Cacak, cacia, caco, Cagccat, cca, Ccaccat, cce, cci, ccma, cco, Ccpa, ccu, ccw, ceca, cecal, Cecco, Cece, ceci, Ceka, ceoc, Cgca, Cgce, chocal, chocar, cic, cica, Cico, cinco, Cisa, clocca, cnca, coa, coaca, coav, Coba, Cobam, coc, cocan, cocc, cocci, cocco, cocea, coch, coci, cocix, cocod, cocom, Cocq, cocr, Cocxa, cofa, coga, cohab, Cok, Cokar, coki, cona, concat, cooga, copa, Copco, Corca, Corcia, cosa, coshi, Cota, Coucal, cova, cowa, cowcat, coxa, crocea, crocean, croci, Cucc, Cuci, Cuco, cucu, cufa, cuoca, cusa, ecca, Fcca, Kocak, Kuczaj, ncca, noca, occa, occi, Ocicat, scucca, soca, woca, Ycfc, yoca. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "coca" (pronounced kō"ku) |
| 3 | -ō" k u | bocce, carioca, loca, Mocha, Oka. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-c-o" | |
-1 letter: oca. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-c-o" | |
+1 letter: acock, cacao, coach, coact, cocas, cocoa. | |
+2 letters: accord, accost, boccia, cacaos, cachou, calico, caroch, cloaca, coacts, cocain, coccal, cocoas, cognac, concha, corsac, macaco. | |
+3 letters: accords, accosts, account, acronic, acrotic, bawcock, boccias, boracic, cachous, cacodyl, cactoid, calicos, caloric, canonic, capouch, caprock, caracol, carioca, caroach, caroche, carroch, cassock, chaotic, chicano, cloacae, cloacal, cloacas, coached, coacher, coaches, coacted, coactor, cocaine, cocains, cochair, cochlea, cockade, cocomat, cocoyam, coeliac, coenact, cognacs, comatic, comical, compact, concave, conceal, conchae, conchal, conical, contact, cooncan, copycat, coracle, corsacs, cossack, curacao, curacoa, haycock, laconic, macacos, oceanic, octadic, pachuco, peacock, picacho, raccoon, seacock, soccage, tobacco, toccata, toccate, vocalic. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Names: Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Abbreviations 15. Acronyms 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
