Origin: Germanic Old English prefix
Benz has 2 different meanings across 1 category:
Short for Mercedes-Benz.
"The car salesman insisted that I drive a new benz instead of renting an economy vehicle."
A surname, from German.
"The famous physicist Albert Einstein often collaborated with a colleague named Benz on their research papers."
The word benz comes directly from the German name of the city where the chemical compound was first discovered and named. It entered English as a shorthand reference to benzene or related substances derived from that location.