ginger

Ginger traveled from Old Tamil iñcivēr, a compound of iñci ("ginger") and vēr ("root"), into Late Ancient Greek zingíberis, then Latin zingiberi and gingiber, through Medieval Latin, Old French gingembre, and Old English gingifer, before settling as Middle English gingere.

The word has stayed remarkably close to its original sense as a name for the plant and its root, passing largely unchanged in meaning through Greek, Latin, French, and English mouths.

The adverb gingerly is unrelated in origin, but curiously the noun sense of 'ginger' as in hair color or spice is sometimes said to be a back-formation from it. In Cockney rhyming slang, 'ginger beer' became slang for 'queer,' a playful offshoot with no etymological link to the spice itself.