mahogany
/məˈhɑɡəni/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.29 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
4
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The valuable wood of any of various tropical American evergreen trees, of the genus Swietenia, mostly used to make furniture.
Uncountable
noun
(by extension) Any of various kinds of trees, the timber of which resembles that of trees the genus Swietenia.
Countable
adj
Made of mahogany.
adj
Having the colour of mahogany; dark reddish-brown.
Example Sentences
- "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[…]."
- "In 2003, at Neal Auction Company in New Orleans, an 1810s mahogany armoire inlaid with ribbons and vines brought $140,000 (the presale estimate was $30,000 to $50,000)."
- "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)."
- "Next day, the fish was 'scrowled' on a gridiron over the fire and eaten with 'mahogany', a powerful mixture of black treacle and gin, a favourite tipple of Cornish fishermen for keeping out the cold!"
- "Better she, my dear, than a black Mrs. Sedley, and a dozen of mahogany grandchildren."
- "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?"
Etymology
A word of unknown origin, concocted in either English or Middle Dutch from one or more exotic phytonyms and common European words. alternative etymologies 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 or a South American language, but no known cognates survive. Another theory attempts to link Yoruba moganwo (“trees”, literally “tall ones”), but this has been criticized.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: -, mogano, moganwo
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /məˈhɑɡəni/
- British English: /məˈhɒɡəni/
Usage
Inflected Forms
mahoganies (plural)
mahoganey (alternative)
mahoganee (alternative)
mahogeney (alternative)
mahogeny (alternative)
mohogeny (alternative)
mohogeney (alternative)
mahagony (alternative)
mahagoney (alternative)
more mahogany (comparative)
most mahogany (superlative)
Derived Forms
Phrases
African mahogany
African scented mahogany
American mahogany
Australian mahogany
bastard mahogany
below the mahogany
birch-leaf mahogany
birch leaf mahogany