Meaning

noun a milky exudate from certain plants that coagulates on exposure to air

noun a water-base paint that has a latex binder

originBorrowed from New Latin latex (“clear fluid which is part of a humour or bodily fluid”), a later use of Latin latex (“water; liquid, fluid”). Potentially a borrowing from Ancient Greek λᾰ́τᾰξ (lắtăx, “drop of wine”), reformed by analogy to other nouns in -ex. The semantic shift, however, from drop of wine to water is difficult to explain and may indicate that both words originated from a separate…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0