a hard, heavy, durable wood, most highly prized when black, from various tropical trees of the genus Diospyros, as D. ebenum of southern India and Sri Lanka, used for cabinetwork, ornamental objects, etc.
Any of various tropical Asian or African trees of the genus Diospyros.
The wood of such a tree, especially the hard black heartwood of D. ebenum or certain other species, used in cabinetwork and inlaying and for piano keys.
The hard dark wood of various other trees.
The color black; ebon.
adj.
Made of or suggesting ebony.
Black in color.
[Probably from Middle English hebenyf, ebony wood, from alteration of Late Latin hebeninus, of ebony, from Greek ebeninos, from ebenos, ebony tree, from Egyptian hbny.]
1597, from hebenyf (1384), M.E. misreading L. hebenius "of ebony," from Gk. ebenios, from ebenos "ebony," probably from Egyp. hbnj or another Sem. source. Fig. use to suggest intense blackness is from 1623.
Eb"on*y\, n.; pl. Ebonies. [F. ['e]b[`e]ne, L. ebenus, fr. Gr. ?; prob. of Semitic origin; cf. Heb. hobn[=i]m, pl. Cf. Ebon.] A hard, heavy, and durable wood, which admits of a fine polish or gloss. The usual color is black, but it also occurs red or green. Note: The finest black ebony is the heartwood of Diospyros reticulata, of the Mauritius. Other species of the same genus (D. Ebenum, Melanoxylon, etc.), furnish the ebony of the East Indies and Ceylon. The West Indian green ebony is from a leguminous tree (Brya Ebenus), and from the Exc[ae]caria glandulosa.
a black, hard wood, brought by the merchants from India to Tyre (Ezek. 27:15). It is the heart-wood, brought by Diospyros ebenus, which grows in Ceylon and Southern India.
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