Ebony is a very hard black wood. Carved in ebony, ebony keys, black as ebony.
It is one of the few woods dense enough to sink in water, and the black heartwood is a small part of the tree, which is why it has always been costly and is now protected by trade rules. Piano black keys were made of it. The name came through Latin from Egyptian.
1nounebonyA very hard black wood.
“The old chess set had pieces carved from ebony and ivory.”
ebony is a wood.
Latin hebenus comes through Greek from an Egyptian word for the tree.
Latin
ebenius
Middle English
ebenif
English, today
ebony
From heben, from Middle English ebenif, from Latin ebenius, from und + hebenus. From earlier heben, hebeny, from Middle English ebenif, hebenyf (influenced by Latin hebeninus), from Ecclesiastical Latin ebenius (“of ebony”), from Latin hebenus (“ebon tree”), from Ancient Greek ἔβενος, from egy hbnj, {{egy-h|U13:n-
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA