ebon
See also: Ebon
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]- hebene (obsolete)
Etymology
[edit]From Old French eban (modern ébène), from Latin ebenus, from Ancient Greek ἔβενος (ébenos, “ebony tree”).
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]ebon (plural ebons)
- (now poetic) Ebony; an ebony tree.
Derived terms
[edit]Adjective
[edit]ebon (comparative more ebon, superlative most ebon)
- (poetic) Made of ebony.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- “A stranger knight,” sayd he, “unknowne by name, / But knowne by fame, and by an Hebene speare […].”
- 1745, Edward Young, Night-Thoughts, section I:
- Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, / In rayless majesty, now stretches forth / Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.
- (poetic) Black in colour.
- 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 238:
- ...flowers stood beside, in an alabaster vase—exotics, that say, "our growth has been precious." A lute leant against the ebon stand; but the face of the lady wore the expression of deep and touching sorrow.
- 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 279:
- Woona had silently and swiftly backed away; and her ebon face, Ursula saw, had changed into leaden flabbiness with some horrible fear.