[f. LANCE sb.1 + WOOD sb.] a. A tough elastic wood imported chiefly from the West Indies, used for carriage-shafts, fishing-rods, cabinet-work, etc. Also, a fishing-rod made of this wood. b. A tree yielding this wood; the best known are Duguetia quitarensis from Cuba and Guiana and Oxandra virgata from Jamaica.
‘The name in Australia is given to Backhousia myrtifolia and in New Zealand to Panax crassifolium’ (Morris, Austral Eng., 1898).
1697. Dampier, Voy., I. 118. The Lancewood grows strait like our young Ashes; it is very hard, tough and heavy.
1756. P. Browne, Jamaica, 177. The aculeated Lycium or Lance-wood. This shrub is common in most parts of the island.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t. (1883), 221. He sent for lancewood to make the thills.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 160/2. The very best ash … is greatly inferior to lance-wood both in strength and elasticity.
1895. Outing (U.S.), XXVI. 376/1. We put the little lancewoods together and started out.
