# mahogany
## English
### Alternative forms

* mahoganey, mahoganee, mahogeney, mahogeny, mohogeny, mohogeney, mahagony, mahagoney (outdated to various degrees)

### Etymology

A word of unknown origin, concocted in either English or Middle Dutch from one or more exotic phytonyms and common European words. (Can this etymology be sourced?)
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.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /məˈhɒɡəni/
* (General American) IPA: /məˈhɑɡəni/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɒɡəni

### Noun

mahogany (countable and uncountable, plural mahoganies)
* (uncountable) The valuable wood of any of various tropical American evergreen trees, of the genus Swietenia, mostly used to make furniture. [from 17th c.]
** 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away […] .
* (countable) Any of the trees from which such wood comes. [from 18th c.]
* (countable)(by extension) Any of various trees which resemble those of the genus Swietenia.
* (regional) A Cornish drink made from gin and treacle. [from 18th c.]
** 1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 178:
    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).
* A reddish-brown color, like that of mahogany wood. [from 19th c.]
** 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 6, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:Better she, my dear, than a black Mrs. Sedley, and a dozen of mahogany grandchildren.
    mahogany:
* (obsolete, colloquial) A table made from mahogany wood; a dining table. [19th c.]
** 1842, Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal:Poets eat and drink without stint — and seldom at their own cost — for what man of mark or likelihood in the moneyed world is there, who is not eager to get their legs under his mahogany?
** 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:Yet habit—strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?—Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany […]

#### Derived terms

* African mahogany (Khaya senegalensis)
* African scented mahogany (Entandrophragma cylindricum)
* American mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni)
* Australian mahogany (Dysoxylum rufum)
* bastard mahogany (Eucalyptus botryoides or Matayba apetala)
* be under the mahogany
* birch-leaf mahogany, birch leaf mahogany, birchleaf mahogany (Cercocarpus betuloides)
* black mahogany (Swietenia humilis)
* blue mahogany (Hibiscus elatus)
* Brazilian mahogany (Cariniana legalis; Plathymenia foliolosa, Plathymenia reticulata)
* brown mahogany (Lovoa swynnertonii)
* Burma mahogany (Pentace burmanica)
* cedar mahogany (Entandrophragma cylindricum)
* cherry mahogany (Mimusops leckellii)
* Colombian mahogany (Cariniana pyriformis)
* Cuban mahogany (Swietinia spp.)
* desert mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius)
* Dominican mahogany (Swietinia mahogani)
* dry zone mahogany (Khaya senegalensis)
* Florida mahogany (Persea borbonia)
* forest mahogany (Eucalyptus spp.)
* gaboon mahogany (Aucoumea klaineana)
* Gambia mahogany (Khaya senegalensis)
* ground mahogany (Swietenia humilis)
* Hawaiian mahogany (Acacia koa)
* Honduras mahogany/Honduran mahogany (Swietenia humilis, Swietenia macrophylla)
* horseflesh mahogany (Lysiloma sabicu)
* Indian mahogany (Toona ciliata, Chukrasia velutina)
* Madeira mahogany (Persea indica)
* mahogany acid
* mahogany bean (Seymeria quanzensis)
* mahogany beebalm (Monarda didyma)
* mahogany birch (Betula lenta)
* mahogany browning
* mahogany clam
* mahogany flat
* mahogany gaspipe
* mahogany glider (Petaurus gracilis)
* mahogany gum (Eucalyptus spp., especially Eucalyptus marginata)
* mahogany Japanese iris (Iris kaempferi)
* mahogany lily (Lilium maculatum)
* mahogany lung
* mahogany peony (Paeonia lactiflora)
* mahogany pine (Podocarpus totara)
* mahogany quahog
* mahogany rot
* mahogany snapper (Lutanus mahogoni)
* mahogany soap
* mahogany Spitfire
* mahogany tree frog (Tlalocohyla loquax)
* monarda mahogany (Monarda didyma)
* mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus spp.)
* Natal mahogany (Trichila dregeana, Trichila emetica)
* Pacific Coast mahogany (Swietenia humilis)
* Philipine red mahogany (Shorea negrosensis)
* Philippine mahogany (Shorea spp., Heritiera javanica, Toona calantas)
* pink mahogany (Guarea cedrata)
* pod mahogany (Seymeria quanzensis)
* put one's legs under someone's mahogany
* red mahogany (Eucalyptus resinifera, Khaya anthotheca)
* Rhodesian mahogany (Guibourtia coleosperma, Afzelia quanzensis)
* rose mahogany (Dysoxylum fraserianum)
* rusty mahogany (Dysoxylum rufum)
* Santos mahogany (Myroxylon balsanum)
* sapele mahogany (Entandrophragma cylindricum)
* scented mahogany (Entandrophragma cylindricum)
* Senegal mahogany (Khaya senegalensis)
* sipo mahogany (Entandrophragma utile)
* small-leaved mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni)
* southern mahogany
* Spanish mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla)
* swamp mahogany (Eucalyptus robusta)
* Tabasco mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla)
* true mahogany (Swietenia spp., especially Swietenia mahogani)
* under the mahogany
* West Indian mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni)
* white mahogany (from Roseodendron donnell-smithii)
* white mahogany (Khaya anthotheca)
* yellow mahogany (Epicharis parasitica, syn. Dysoxylum parasiticum)

#### Descendants

* → German: Mahagoni

#### Translations
### Adjective

mahogany (comparative more mahogany, superlative most mahogany)
* Made of mahogany.
* Having the colour of mahogany; dark reddish-brown.

### References

* 1 2 Malone, Kemp (1965) “Notes on the Word Mahogany”, in Economic Botany, volume 19, number 3, →JSTOR, pages 286–292
* ↑ Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “mahogany”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
* ↑ mogano in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana
* ↑ Lamb, F. Bruce (1963) “On Further Defining Mahogany”, in Economic Botany, volume 17, number 3, →JSTOR, pages 217–232

### Further reading

* “mahogany”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

### Anagrams

* Hogmanay