mahogany

CEFRB2

/məˈhɒɡəni/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A hard reddish-brown wood used for furniture.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    (by extension) Any of various kinds of trees, the timber of which resembles that of trees the genus Swietenia.

Examples

  • I bought the mahogany table because it was the most elegant.

  • I have an old mahogany desk.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. Any of the trees from which such wood comes.

  2. The valuable wood of any of various tropical American evergreen trees, of the genus Swietenia, mostly used to make furniture.

  3. A reddish-brown color, like that of mahogany wood.

More examples

In context

  • Tom has a mahogany desk.

  • 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).

  • 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).

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The new desk was made of blank, a hard reddish-brown wood used for fine furniture.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

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.