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buttonwood

[ buht-n-wood ]

noun

  1. Chiefly Eastern New England. sycamore ( def 1 ).


buttonwood

/ ˈbʌtənˌwʊd /

noun

  1. Also calledbuttonball a North American plane tree, Platanus occidentalis See plane tree
  2. a small West Indian tree, Conocarpus erectus , with button-like fruits and heavy hard compact wood: family Combretaceae


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Word History and Origins

Origin of buttonwood1

An Americanism dating back to 1665–75; button + wood 1

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Example Sentences

Buyers and sellers would meet, first under a Buttonwood tree in 1792, and then on the floors, to trade stocks.

The identical buttonwood with its great parasite was before us, the dog barking at its foot!

The fruit of the buttonwood, or sycamore, which grows along streams, is in the form of balls an inch and a half in diameter.

One solitary buttonwood stood close to the edge of the bank,—so close that at high tide its brandies hung over the water.

In front of it was a green lawn, adorned with several large buttonwood trees.

An axillary bud, concealed under the hollowed base of the leaf-stalk, in Buttonwood or Plane-tree.

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