logwood
noun
Forms logwoods
- noun A tree of species Haematoxylum campechianum, in the legume family, of great economic importance and growing throughout Central America.
- noun Any of various trees of the genus Xylosma in the willow family.
- noun Wood of any of these trees.
Synonyms
logwood tree campeachy bloodwood tree Haematoxylum campechianum
Etymology
From log + wood.
Webster’s 1913
- The heartwood of a tree (Hæmatoxylon Campechianum), a native of South America, It is a red, heavy wood, containing a crystalline substance called hæmatoxylin, and is used largely in dyeing. An extract from this wood is used in medicine as an astringent. Also called Campeachy wood, and bloodwood.
- A combining form denoting a discourse, treatise, doctrine, theory, science; as, theology, geology, biology, mineralogy.
Etymology [So called from being imported in logs.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “logwood”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details