In the era of Middle English, the term hemp was written as hempe, hemppe, henpe, henoppe, henepe, henep, and hanep. This can be traced back to Old English hænep, which has its roots in Proto-Germanic hanapiz, with a similar meaning. The origin of this word is uncertain, but it does not belong to the Indo-European language family. The prevailing theory suggests that it may have been borrowed from a Scythian word resembling kannapis. This same word is believed to have evolved into Ancient Greek kannabis, which also denoted the plant. This evolution continued as kannabis transformed into the Latin term cannabis, which was later adopted into English as a synonym for hemp. The usage of hemp was more prevalent in literature in the past, but now both terms are equally common; according to Google Trends and Google NGrams data, their popularity is similar.
