imbé

See also: Imbé and imbe

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Brazilian Portuguese imbé, from Tupian.

Noun

imbé (plural imbés)

1. A South American liana, Philodendron imbe.
   • 1819, Robert Southey, chapter XLIV, in History of Brazil, 3rd part, London: […] [William Pople] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […], →OCLC, page 862:

     Many vessels were built there; and the principal exports were wood and cordage, made of the imbé.

   • 1875, Franz Keller, The Amazon and Madeira Rivers: Sketches and Descriptions from the Note-book of an Explorer:

     In Brazil there are at least six very different species of this family. […] The straight ropes on the right are the air-roots of the imbé; […]

   • 1883, Mary Hayden Pike, Ida May, by Mary Langdon, ed. by an English clergyman, page 350:

     Other curious plants grew at this spot, among which I noticed the aninga, a plant which belongs to the Colocasice. On the trees around, too, were many beautiful orchids and lianas, among which the rope-like roots of the large-leaved imbé attracted my attention; […]

   • 1940, Hanna Rydh, Argentine to Andes, page 20:

     Enthroned in the crown, a stately imbé, in the axils leafy bromelia with their gorgeous flowers, along the branches […]. The lianas, like close-fitting blinds, drew an impenetrable curtain before our eyes; yet we continued to stare bewitched […]

   • 1987, John Hemming, Amazon Frontier: The Defeat of the Brazilian Indians, page 449:

     The weapons they use in these pursuits are finished with extraordinary skill. Their long bows are all veneered with bark from imbé lianas and their arrows are made of a wood of great elasticity and worked so well that they look machine-made.

See also

• imbe (“the African tree Garcinia livingstonei”)

Anagrams

• mebi-