Meaning & use
ebony
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Meanings
noununcountable
A dense, heavy, very dark wood from certain tropical trees, valued for musical instruments, carvings and fine furniture.
Grammar: Usually uncountable when it means the wood: a box made of ebony.
Patterns
- made of ebony
- carved from ebony
The piano's black keys were once cut from ebony.
The craftsman carved a chess piece out of a block of ebony.
Ebony is so dense that it sinks in water.
noununcountable
A very deep, glossy black color, like the wood of the ebony tree.
Grammar: Used for the color in general: painted in ebony, not an ebony.
Patterns
- in ebony
The artist painted the horse's coat in rich ebony.
The night sky was a velvety ebony with no moon.
She chose ebony for the cover because it looks elegant.
adjectivenot comparableliterary
Of a very dark, glossy black color.
Grammar: Comes before a noun: ebony hair, an ebony cat.
An ebony cat slipped silently along the wall.
She wore her ebony hair in a long braid.
The lake looked ebony under the starless sky.
Common combinations
- ebony wood
- Ebony wood is expensive because the trees grow slowly.
- ebony keys
- The pianist's fingers moved between the ivory and ebony keys.
- ebony black
- The beetle's shell was a shiny ebony black.
- polished ebony
- The table's top was polished ebony.
- ebony and ivory
- The piano keys of ebony and ivory shone under the lamp.
- carved ebony
- A carved ebony figure stood on the shelf.
Synonyms and how they differ
- jet
- Jet is also glossy black, but it refers to a black gemstone and is mostly used in the phrase jet black, while ebony links to the dark wood.
- raven
- Raven describes a shining black color, usually for hair, and carries the image of the bird, while ebony is used for many kinds of objects.
- sable
- Sable is a poetic word for black, often found in older writing and heraldry, and is less visual than ebony.
Opposites
Word family
- ebonize verb
- to stain or finish wood so it looks black like ebony
- ebonite noun
- a hard black rubber used in the past for pipes and instrument parts
- ebon adjective
- an old poetic form meaning black as ebony
Commonly confused: ebony or ebonite?
ebony vs ebonite
Ebonite is a hard black rubber, not a wood. It looks like ebony but was made from treated rubber.
Practice
The black keys on traditional pianos were often made of ___, a dense dark wood from tropical trees.
Choose one answer.
Ebony is a heavy, very dark wood used for keys. Pine, balsa and birch are pale and lighter woods, and balsa is the lightest of all.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “ebony”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.