Well, the names things have should at least give you a hint about what they are. "Transparent wood" doesn't tell you everything about what the material is, but

Well, the names things have should at least give you a hint about what they are. "Transparent wood" doesn't tell you everything about what the material is, but it does tell you part of where it comes from (trees) and it tells you that it's transparent. That's enough for a person to have a vague notion of what it looks like without having ever seen it, even if they still don't know what it is. Conversely, if we were to refer to it by a more precise description such as "structure of cellulose tubules held together by a polymer and disposed in an axially optically transparent manner", that would tell you more about what the material is made of, but practically nothing about what it looks like and why it's interesting.