English▸ noun [mass noun] an Asian plant of the ginger family, the aromatic rhizome of which is widely used in cooking and herbal medicine.
Genera Alpinia and Kaempferia, family Zingiberaceae.
– ORIGIN Middle English galingale, via Old French from Arabic ḵalanjān, perhaps from Chinese gāoliángjiāng, from gāoliáng (the name of a district in Guangdong Province, China) + jiāng ‘ginger’.