Meaning

noun large genus of African trees bearing kola nuts

noun carbonated drink flavored with extract from kola nuts (`dope' is a southernism in the United States)

noun the part of the large intestine between the cecum and the rectum; it extracts moisture from food residues before they are excreted

originFrom a Niger-Congo language, compare Temne kola, Mandinka kola. The beverage "Coca-Cola" was what made the term widely known, and popularized the spelling with c instead of k.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0