bilian

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Malay belian.

Noun

bilian (uncountable)

1. A hardwood tree, Eusideroxylon zwageri, of Malaysia, Borneo, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 272:

     With forests of bilian - a wood which is used all over the East for similar purposes - within a few days' sail of Port Darwin, in British North Borneo, it is strange that a market at such a distance was selected, more especially as it would have benefited both countries to have had some interchange of trade.

2. The timber of this tree, impervious to white-ants.