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mahogany

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Swietenia mahagoni, a species of mahogany (sense 2)
mahogany (sense 1) sideboard, c. 1870
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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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A word of unknown origin,[1] concocted in either English or Middle Dutch from one or more exotic phytonyms and common European words. (Can this(+) etymology be sourced?)

Alternatively from Portuguese mogano, mógono, obsolete forms of mogno, itself of unknown origin (often suggested to be from the English word instead of the reverse), perhaps from an extinct indigenous language, such as a Mayan language originally spoken in Honduras[2] or a South American language,[3] but no known cognates survive. Another theory attempts to link Yoruba moganwo (“trees”, literally “tall ones”),[4] but this has been criticized.[1]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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mahogany (countable and uncountable, plural mahoganies)

  2. (uncountable) The valuable wood of any of various tropical American evergreen trees, of the genus Swietenia, mostly used to make furniture. [from 17th c.]
    • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
      A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away […] .
  4. (countable) Any of the trees from which such wood comes. [from 18th c.]
  6. (countable)(by extension) Any of various trees which resemble those of the genus Swietenia.
  7. (regional) A Cornish drink made from gin and treacle. [from 18th c.]
    • 1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 178:
      William Murdoch […] produced a bottle of port; but I chose mahogany (two parts gin and one part treacle, which Lord Eliot made us at Sir Joshua Reynolds's as a Cornish liquor, but it seems they make it also with brandy, and often add porter to it).
  8. A reddish-brown color, like that of mahogany wood. [from 19th c.]
    mahogany:  
  9. (obsolete, colloquial) A table made from mahogany wood; a dining table. [19th c.]
    • 1842, Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal:
      Poets eat and drink without stint — and seldom at their own cost — for what man of mark or likelihood in the moneyed world is there, who is not eager to get their legs under his mahogany?
    • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
      Yet habit—strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?—Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany  […]

Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → German: Mahagoni

Translations

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Adjective

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mahogany (comparative more mahogany, superlative most mahogany)

  1. Made of mahogany.
  2. Having the colour of mahogany; dark reddish-brown.

References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Malone, Kemp (1965) “Notes on the Word Mahogany”, in Economic Botany, volume 19, number 3, →JSTOR, pages 286–292
  2. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “mahogany”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
  3. ^ mogano in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana
  4. ^ Lamb, F. Bruce (1963) “On Further Defining Mahogany”, in Economic Botany, volume 17, number 3, →JSTOR, pages 217–232

Further reading

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  • “mahogany”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

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