MAHOGANY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does mahogany mean? 

• MAHOGANY (noun)
  The noun MAHOGANY has 3 senses:

1. wood of any of various mahogany trees; much used for cabinetwork and furniture

2. any of various tropical timber trees of the family Meliaceae especially the genus Swietinia valued for their hard yellowish- to reddish-brown wood that is readily worked and takes a high polish

3. a shade of brown with a tinge of red

  Familiarity information: MAHOGANY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MAHOGANY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Wood of any of various mahogany trees; much used for cabinetwork and furniture

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("mahogany" is a kind of...):

wood (the hard fibrous lignified substance under the bark of trees)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mahogany"):

Philippine mahogany (red hardwood of the Philippine mahogany tree used for cigar boxes and interior finish)

cigar-box cedar (fragrant wood much used for cigar boxes)

Holonyms ("mahogany" is a substance of...):

mahogany; mahogany tree (any of various tropical timber trees of the family Meliaceae especially the genus Swietinia valued for their hard yellowish- to reddish-brown wood that is readily worked and takes a high polish)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any of various tropical timber trees of the family Meliaceae especially the genus Swietinia valued for their hard yellowish- to reddish-brown wood that is readily worked and takes a high polish

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

mahogany; mahogany tree

Hypernyms ("mahogany" is a kind of...):

tree (a tall perennial woody plant having a main trunk and branches forming a distinct elevated crown; includes both gymnosperms and angiosperms)

Meronyms (substance of "mahogany"):

mahogany (wood of any of various mahogany trees; much used for cabinetwork and furniture)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mahogany"):

Cedrela odorata; Spanish cedar; Spanish cedar tree (tropical American tree yielding fragrant wood used especially for boxes)

African scented mahogany; cedar mahogany; Entandrophragma cylindricum; sapele mahogany (African tree having rather lightweight cedar-scented wood varying in color from pink to reddish brown)

African mahogany (African tree having hard heavy odorless wood)

Cuban mahogany; Dominican mahogany; Swietinia mahogani; true mahogany (mahogany tree of West Indies)

Honduras mahogany; Swietinia macrophylla (an important Central American mahogany tree)

Cedrela calantas; kalantas; Philippine cedar; Philippine mahogany; Toona calantas (Philippine timber tree having hard red fragrant wood)

hardtack (a mountain mahogany)

Holonyms ("mahogany" is a member of...):

family Meliaceae; mahogany family; Meliaceae (tropical trees and shrubs including many important timber and ornamental trees)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A shade of brown with a tinge of red

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

burnt sienna; mahogany; reddish brown; sepia; Venetian red

Hypernyms ("mahogany" is a kind of...):

brown; brownness (an orange of low brightness and saturation)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mahogany"):

brick red (a bright reddish-brown color)

copper; copper color (a reddish-brown color resembling the color of polished copper)

Indian red (a reddish-brown color resembling the red soil used as body paint by American Indians)

 Context examples 

The short soft coat comes in shades of fawn to mahogany with a black or red mask and may have white markings on the tips of the toes and chest.

(Dogue-de-Bordeaux, NCI Thesaurus)

It has a feathered, silky coat that comes in shades of chestnut to mahogany, sometimes with splashes of white on the chest and feet.

(Irish Setter, NCI Thesaurus)

It has short, erect ears and a short-haired coat that is fawn to red to mahogany with black tips, mask, and ears.

(Belgian Malinois, NCI Thesaurus)

A spare parlour and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the passage, and carpets on the stairs.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Fanny's imagination had prepared her for something grander than a mere spacious, oblong room, fitted up for the purpose of devotion: with nothing more striking or more solemn than the profusion of mahogany, and the crimson velvet cushions appearing over the ledge of the family gallery above.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I glanced about the room, which had had its sanded floor sanded, no doubt, in exactly the same manner when the chief waiter was a boy—if he ever was a boy, which appeared improbable; and at the shining tables, where I saw myself reflected, in unruffled depths of old mahogany; and at the lamps, without a flaw in their trimming or cleaning; and at the comfortable green curtains, with their pure brass rods, snugly enclosing the boxes; and at the two large coal fires, brightly burning; and at the rows of decanters, burly as if with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old port wine below; and both England, and the law, appeared to me to be very difficult indeed to be taken by storm.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was in vain I looked about me; in vain I saw the decent furniture and tall proportions of my room in the square; in vain that I recognised the pattern of the bed curtains and the design of the mahogany frame; something still kept insisting that I was not where I was, that I had not wakened where I seemed to be, but in the little room in Soho where I was accustomed to sleep in the body of Edward Hyde.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

She saw a large, well-proportioned apartment, an handsome dimity bed, arranged as unoccupied with an housemaid's care, a bright Bath stove, mahogany wardrobes, and neatly painted chairs, on which the warm beams of a western sun gaily poured through two sash windows!

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

This he unpacked with the help of a youth whom he had brought with him, and presently, to my very great astonishment, a quite epicurean little cold supper began to be laid out upon our humble lodging-house mahogany.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

One day last spring, in town, I was in company with two men, striking instances of what I am talking of; Lord St Ives, whose father we all know to have been a country curate, without bread to eat; I was to give place to Lord St Ives, and a certain Admiral Baldwin, the most deplorable-looking personage you can imagine; his face the colour of mahogany, rough and rugged to the last degree; all lines and wrinkles, nine grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at top. 'In the name of heaven, who is that old fellow?' said I to a friend of mine who was standing near, (Sir Basil Morley).

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)