ebon

• hebene (obsolete)

From Old French eban (modern ébène), from Latin ebenus, from Ancient Greek ἔβενος (ébenos, “ebony tree”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛbən/

ebon (plural ebons)

1. (now poetic) Ebony; an ebony tree.

ebon (comparative more ebon, superlative most ebon)

1. (poetic) Made of ebony.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     “A stranger knight,” sayd he, “unknowne by name, / But knowne by fame, and by an Hebene speare […].”

   • 1745, Edward Young, Night-Thoughts, section I:

     Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, / In rayless majesty, now stretches forth / Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.

2. (poetic, literary) Black in colour.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 238:

     ...flowers stood beside, in an alabaster vase—exotics, that say, "our growth has been precious." A lute leant against the ebon stand; but the face of the lady wore the expression of deep and touching sorrow.

3. (literary, now offensive) Having dark skin; black.
   • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 279:

     Woona had silently and swiftly backed away; and her ebon face, Ursula saw, had changed into leaden flabbiness with some horrible fear.

   • 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 124:

     With the quickness of thought his spear arm flew back, and then shot forward with all the force of the sinewy muscles that rolled beneath the shimmering ebon hide. True to its mark the iron-shod weapon flew, transfixing Numa’s sleek carcass from the right groin to beneath the left shoulder.

• Beno, Boen, Bone, Bône, bone