> > Perhaps you should look up "latex" and "plastic" in a dictionary. "Plastic" doesn't necessarily mean "made of plastic". Saying a substance is plastic refers to it being impressionable, bendy, squidgy, stretchy and so forth. Likewise, latex is a term for the sap of certain plants, as well as being a particular artificially created substance. Chicle is made from the sap (latex) of one such plant.
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> Out of curiosity, did you already know those alternative definitions, or did you look them up?
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> Also, it's kind of interesting how plastic and latex have those two separate, but in both ways somewhat realted, definitions.

I already knew what "plastic" and "latex" meant but I had to look up "chicle". It isn't really all that startling that they have two definitions. "Plastic" meant impressionable long before the substance plastic was invented. That's why the artificial substance was *named* plastic. Similarly, I would guess that synthetic latex got named after plant-derived latex (I have no idea what substance the latex in gloves etc comes from, so for all I know it might even *be* natural latex). Same as rubber, which I know used to be made from the sap of the rubber tree, but I have no idea whether it still is, or if it's entirely artificial these days.