macintosh

You probably know "Macintosh" as the name of Apple's early personal computer line, often shortened to "Mac." The name was inspired by the McIntosh apple, which Jef Raskin liked. The spelling was changed from "McIntosh" to "Macintosh" to avoid a legal problem with the audio company McIntosh Laboratory.

The word also has an older meaning. A "macintosh," often just called a "mac," is a waterproof raincoat. That sense comes from Charles Macintosh, the Scottish chemist who helped make waterproof cloth in the 1800s. So the word can point to a raincoat, an apple, or, most famously today, an Apple computer.

The word "Macintosh" has moved through several well-known meanings over time. One older meaning is a waterproof raincoat, often shortened to "mac." That clothing term comes from Charles Macintosh, a Scottish chemist who patented waterproof cloth in 1823 by placing rubber between layers of fabric. In British English especially, a "macintosh" or "mackintosh" can still mean a raincoat.

The name is also tied to the "McIntosh" apple, a variety discovered in Canada in the early 1800s. It became widely known in North America and later inspired Jef Raskin when he named an Apple computer project. Apple changed the spelling to "Macintosh" to avoid a conflict with McIntosh Laboratory, an audio company.

For many people today, "Macintosh" mainly refers to Apple's original personal computer line and, more broadly, to the Mac. That use became famous in the 1980s and remains the meaning most people recognize first. Depending on context, though, the word may still refer to the raincoat or, less often, the apple that helped give the computer its name.