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 N.O. Ebenaceæ, especially that mentioned under EBON 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.
1607. Norden, Surv. Dial., 192. 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. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 435. 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. trans. Keysler’s Trav. (1760), I. 378. A large nasso, or ebony-tree, which much resembles the fir-tree.
1861. Du Chaillu, Equat. Afr., xvi. 277. Quengueza and I … started up river for the ebony country.
4. As the type of intense blackness. Son of ebony: humorously = negro. Also attrib., as in ebony complexion, skin, etc.
1834. Mrs. Somerville, Connex. Phys. Sc., xxvii. (1849), 308. The different tribes of mankind, from the ebony skin of the torrid zone to [etc.].
1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., I. vi. 70. Black Sam, as he was commonly called, from his being about three shades blacker than any other son of ebony on the place.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 39. A race of savages … the ebony negroes of the Soudan.
