ebony
(ˈɛbənɪ)
Forms: 4 hebenyf, 6 hebeny, ebonie, (7 ebany, ebeny, ibony), 7– ebony.
[Of somewhat obscure formation: ME. hebenyf is app. ad. L. hebeninus (? misread as hebeniuus), ad. Gr. ἐβένινος made of ebony, f. hebenus ebony. Cf. ebon.]
1. a. A hard black wood, obtained from various species of the family Ebenaceæ, especially that mentioned under ebon n. 2, and Diospyros Melanoxylon, a native of Coromandel. b. The wood of Brya Ebenus (quot. 1725), a native of Jamaica.
| 1382 Wyclif Ezek. xxvii. 15 Teeth of..hebenyf [Vulg. dentes hebeniros], that is a tree that after that it is kit waxith hard as a stoon. 1573 Art Limning 9 The saide vernishe maketh tables..of..hebeny to glister. 1597 Greene Poems (1861) 312 In a coach of ebony she went. 1608 Norden Surv. Dial., I saw pales made of an Oke..blacke as Ibony. 1682 Wheler Journ. Greece vi. 448 Here grows some Ebany. a 1748 Thomson Sickness i. (R.) Affliction, hail!..open wide thy gates, Thy gates of ebony. 1816 J. Smith Panorama Sci. & Art I. 84 Hard woods, such as box, lignum-vitæ, or ebony. 1837 Whewell Hist. Induct. Sc. (1857) II. 50 A ball of ebony sinks in the water. 1878 R. B. Smith Carthage 434 Real downright negroes, half-naked, black as ebony. |
2. One of the trees above-mentioned.
| 1810 Charac. in Ann. Reg. 614/2 There are entire woods of cedars and ebonies. 1859 Tennent Ceylon II. ix. v. 494 Ebony is the most important of the trees which they are in the habit of felling. |
3. attrib.
| 1598 W. Phillips Linschoten's Trav. Ind. in Arb. Garner III. 28 They carry into India, gold..ebony wood. 1633 G. Herbert Temple, Even-song, Thus in thy Ebony box Thou dost inclose us. 1681 R. Knox Hist. Ceylon 86 Ebeny pestels about four foot long. 1756–7 tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) I. 378 A large nasso, or ebony-tree, which much resembles the fir-tree. 1861 P. B. Du Chaillu Equat. Afr. xvi. 277 Quengueza and I..started up river for the ebony country. |
4. a. As the type of intense blackness. son of ebony: humorously = Negro. Also attrib., as in ebony complexion, ebony skin, etc.
| 1823 C. Mathews Let. 23 Feb. in Memoirs (1839) III. 388 A Hottentot Adonis appeared, with..an effluvia arising from his ebony skin. 1834 M. Somerville Connex. Phys. Sc. xxvii. (1849) 308 The different tribes of mankind, from the ebony skin of the torrid zone to, etc. 1850 Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom's C. vi. 35 Black Sam..about three shades blacker than any other son of ebony on the place. 1878 R. B. Smith Carthage 39 A race of savages..the ebony negroes of the Soudan. |
b. A Negro. U.S.
| 1851 H. Melville Moby Dick II. xxii. 165 The old black..came shambling along from his galley;..this old Ebony floundered along. 1863 ‘E. Kirke’ My Southern Friends iv. 69 The scented ebony roared. 1889 Farmer Americanisms s.v., An ebony is a negro in common parlance. |