lac

Imagine walking through a lush forest in India or Southeast Asia. You might notice tiny insects clinging to branches and leaving behind a reddish resin. That resin is called lac. For centuries, people have collected this natural substance and turned it into shellac, a glossy coating used on wood, nails, and even some candies.

But that is not the only meaning. In South Asian English, lac can also be a variant spelling of lakh, which means one hundred thousand. So in one story, lac is a natural resin; in another, it is a number word you may see in Indian writing and speech. Most often in general English, though, it refers to the resin that gives us shellac.

Lac has two main meanings in English, and the context usually makes the difference clear.

The older and more widely recognized meaning is a resin secreted by the lac insect (Kerria lacca), a tiny scale insect that lives on certain trees, especially in India and Southeast Asia. As the insects feed on sap, they leave behind a sticky, reddish substance on the branches. People harvest this material and process it into *shellac*, which has long been used as a glossy finish and protective coating.

For a long time, shellac made from lac was a standard finish for furniture and woodwork, before modern synthetic products became common. It is still used for restoring antiques, coating pills, glazing some candies and fruit, and in other products that need a thin, shiny layer. In this sense, lac names the raw natural material rather than the final refined product.

There is also a second meaning, mainly in South Asian English: lac can be a variant spelling of lakh, meaning *100,000. For example, someone might write "5 lac rupees" instead of "5 lakh rupees," although lakh is the more common spelling. Because of this, if you see lac* in a business, financial, or Indian context, it may refer to a number rather than a resin.

So the word carries two stories. In one, it comes from insects, trees, and shellac. In the other, it appears in counting and money, especially in Indian English. Both meanings are correct, but the resin sense is the one most dictionaries give first.