ebony
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
A deep, dark black colour.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ehbuhneeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɛbəni
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
countable and uncountable
A deep, dark black colour.
A very dark black
Dark skin colour.
countable
A tree that yields such wood.
countable
A black key on a piano or other keyboard instrument (as opposed to ivory).
adjective
Dark-skinned; black; especially in reference to African-Americans.
A deep, dark black colour.
Made of ebony wood.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (countable and uncountable) A deep, dark black colour.
Used this way, ebony is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- coal black , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use ebony
- “The antique piano was made of beautiful ebony wood, dark and shiny.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
A very dark black.
A black colour, like that of coal.
A dark brown colour, resembling the fur of some sables.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Fruit and timber trees of tropical and warm regions including ebony and persimmon.
Common North American fern with polished black stripes.
Tropical tree of southern Asia having hard dark-colored heartwood used in cabinetwork.
Fern of tropical America: from southern United States to West Indies and Mexico to Brazil.
Small East Indian tree having orchid-like flowers and hard dark wood.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: dark-skinned
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.