proprietary name of a brand of cigarette lighter, patented 1934 by Zippo Manufacturing Co., Bradford, Pa.

German manufacturing company, named for founder Max Braun, mechanical engineer in Frankfurt am Main (1921).

masc. proper name and surname, variant of Alan (q.v.). In reference to a wrench, key, screw, etc. with a hexagonal socket or head, 1913, from the Allen Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.

German monoplane of World War I, 1913, from name of Anton "Anthony" H.G. Fokker (1890-1939), Dutch engineer and inventor who started his aircraft manufacturing business in Germany in 1912.

city in Michigan, U.S., from French détroit, literally "straits," from Old French destreit (12c.), from Latin districtum, neuter of districtus (see district (n.)). A French fort was built there 1701. By 1918 the city name was synonymous with "U.S. automobile manufacturing."

manufacturing city in Yorkshire, noted for cutlery and metalwork at least since 14c. (Chaucer's Sheffeld thwitel, a knife made in Sheffield). The name is from late Old English Scafeld "Open Land by the River Sheaf." The Old English river name is perhaps from sceað "boundary."

house or family which reigned in England from 1154 to 1485, the name apparently is literally "broom-plant" (French plante genêt), from Latin genista "broom plant."

plant genus, mostly herbaceous climbers, 1550s, "periwinkle," from Latin clematis, from Greek klematis, in Dioscorides as the name of a climbing or trailing plant (OED says probably the periwinkle) with long and lithe branches, diminutive of klema "vine-branch, shoot or twig broken off" (for grafting), from klan "to break" (see clastic).

1872, trademark for an ointment made from petroleum and marketed by Chesebrough Manufacturing Co., coined from German Wasser "water" + Greek elaion "oil" + scientific-sounded ending -ine. Robert A. Chesebrough was of the opinion that petroleum was a product of the underground decomposition of water.

The name is of mixed origin, being derived from Wasser, water, and elaion [Greek in the original], oil (water-oil), and indicates the belief of the discoverer that petroleum, the mother of Vaseline, is produced by the agency of heat and pressure from the carbon of certain rocks, and the hydrogen of water. [The Monthly Review of Dental Surgery, February 1877]

fem. proper name, Latin fem. of angelicus "angelic" (see angelic). As a type of plant, 1570s, probably so called for its scent.