Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various small deciduous trees of the genus Carpinus, having smooth grayish bark, small nuts borne in leaflike bracts, and hard wood.
- noun The wood of one of these trees.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A small tree belonging to the genus Carpinus, of the natural order Cupuliferæ.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A tree of the genus Carpinus (
Carpinus Americana ), having a smooth gray bark and a ridged trunk, the wood being white and very hard. It is common along the banks of streams in the United States, and is also calledironwood . The English hornbeam isCarpinus Betulus . The American is called alsoblue beech andwater beech . - noun (Bot.) See under
Hop .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
tree of thegenus Carpinus , having a smooth gray bark and a ridged trunk, the wood being white and very hard, common along the banks of streams in the United States. - noun A
hop hornbeam . - noun The
wood of these trees.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of several trees or shrubs of the genus Carpinus
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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As my patient husband remarked recently, "I understand now: box, yew, hornbeam and more box, yew and hornbeam."
That Garden Je Ne Sais Quoi Charlotte Moss 2011
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The repetition of boxwood, yew and hornbeam—stalwarts of the French garden—creates an overall harmony, a symphony in green.
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Charlotte Moss This window in a hornbeam hedge at d'Orsan provides a view of the enfilade of outdoor rooms.
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Photograph by Alexandre Bailhache Pleached hornbeam arches and chestnut pergolas create verdant alleys connecting one garden room to the next and provide shaded, secluded walks.
Paradise Regained 2010
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The foundation of the arches was fashioned in 1993, and it took several years for the hornbeam to cover them.
Paradise Regained 2010
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The first frost had come and the colour was already in the hornbeam as I gathered up a clump of bulbs to bring with me to my new home in Somerset and, weather permitting, I expect to have them in flower until the end of the month.
Gardens: The late, late, show… by the nerines Dan Pearson 2010
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We were looking for hardhack, the local name for hop hornbeam, a heavy, dense hardwood that wears extremely well and is, according to Mr. Owens, the very best material from which to make a jumper.
The Dirty Life Kristin Kimball 2010
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Photograph by Alexandre Bailhache Shown here in autumn, the Prieur é is surrounded by arched hornbeam hedges.
Paradise Regained 2010
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Starlings flitter in the branches of the dead hornbeam by the fence.
hayden carruth | silence & prepare « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2008
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Then Cicero and I rose early one morning, while the rest of the household was asleep, and took it into the nearby woods and buried it between a hornbeam and an ash.
CONSPIRATA ROBERT HARRIS 2010
chained_bear commented on the word hornbeam
"Panting, sweating, covered with crumbled leaves and with my stockings in rags, I curled up under a big hornbeam, and burrowed back under the blanket. Thus concealed, I had a try at undoing the knots in the rope around my wrists...."
—Diana Gabaldon, A Breath of Snow and Ashes (New York: Bantam Dell, 2005), 215
January 31, 2010