Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of numerous trees, such as the hornbeam and the hop hornbeam, that have very hard wood.
- noun The wood of any of these trees.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In Polynesia, Casuarina equisetifolia, a littoral tree with jointed leafless branches and very hard and heavy wood: used by the natives for making spears. See
horsetail-tree andagoho . - noun A large tree of the myrtle family, Metrosideros lucida, yielding a very hard, strong, red wood, which is used for ship-building, spokes, hubs, and cross-ties for railways.
- noun One of numerous species of peculiarly hard-wooded trees, belonging to many orders and widely distributed.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A tree unusually hard, strong, or heavy wood.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun countable Any of a number of tree
species known for having a particularly solidwood . - noun uncountable The wood of any ironwood tree.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun exceptionally tough or hard wood of any of a number of ironwood trees
- noun medium-sized hop hornbeam of eastern North America
- noun handsome East Indian evergreen tree often planted as an ornamental for its fragrant white flowers that yield a perfume; source of very heavy hardwood used for railroad ties
- noun a small slow-growing deciduous tree of northern Iran having a low domed shape
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Back in Maine, the term ironwood clearly referred to the common hop hornbeam.
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Courtesy of the artist Dismantled temples dating from the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) provided the tieli wood -- also called ironwood -- for "Map of China" (2004).
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Unique to southwestern Morocco, the trees produce a hard wood, called ironwood, used for fuel.
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Ocean City Mayor Sal Perillo said that he could not ignore the potential long-term cost savings of installing ipe, which is sometimes called ironwood for its durability.
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More than 160 plant species, including six threatened succulents, depend upon legumes such as ironwood and mesquite for their regeneration in the Sonoran Desert.
Sonoran desert 2009
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The two that are getting to me lately are "ironwood," which here in Hawai'i means a variety of Casuarina sp. native to Australia I think.
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Locally known as "ironwood," casuarinas have been planted for erosion control, dune stabilization, windbreaks, fuelwood plantations, beautification, and watershed cover.
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Though its historic charm remains, the home also includes a new gourmet kitchen, media room, game room, art studio, ironwood veranda and three original Wright Roman fireplaces.
PHOTOS: Inside Frank Lloyd Wright's Historic Gridley House Aixa Velez 2011
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Though its historic charm remains, the home also includes a new gourmet kitchen, media room, game room, art studio, ironwood veranda and three original Wright Roman fireplaces.
PHOTOS: Inside Frank Lloyd Wright's Historic Gridley House Aixa Velez 2011
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Though its historic charm remains, the home also includes a new gourmet kitchen, media room, game room, art studio, ironwood veranda and three original Wright Roman fireplaces.
PHOTOS: Inside Frank Lloyd Wright's Historic Gridley House Aixa Velez 2011
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