ebon

English

Alternative forms

• hebene (obsolete)

Etymology

From Old French eban (modern ébène), from Latin ebenus, from Ancient Greek ἔβενος (ébenos, “ebony tree”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛbən/

Noun

ebon (plural ebons)

1. (now poetic) Ebony; an ebony tree.

Adjective

ebon (comparative more ebon, superlative most ebon)

1. (poetic) Made of ebony.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.5:

     “A stranger knight,” sayd he, “unknowne by name, / But knowne by fame, and by an Hebene speare […].”

   • 1745, Edward Young, Night-Thoughts, I:

     Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, / In rayless majesty, now stretches forth / Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.

2. (poetic) Black in colour.
   • 1907, Barbara Baynton, Sally Krimmer; Alan Lawson, editors, 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.

Anagrams

• Beno, Boen, Bone, Bône, bone