Page "Byssus" Paragraph 3

The etymology of byssus, according to the OED2, began with Biblical Hebrew būts or butz בוץ meaning ' a fibre or fabric distinguished for its whiteness ', cognate with Aramaic ܒܘܫ bus and Arabic باض bāḍa ' to be white '.

This Hebrew term was translated as Latin byssus and Greek βύσσος " a fine yellowish flax, and the linen made from it, but in later writers taken for cotton, also silk, which was supposed to be a kind of cotton ".