Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The lignum-vitæ, Guaiacum officinale and G. sanctum.
- noun In the southwestern United States and Mexico, a shrub or small tree, Porlieria angustifolia, closely related to the lignumvitæ.
- noun In Argentina, a large leguminous tree, Cæsalpinia melanocarpa, yielding a very hard, heavy wood which resembles lignumvitæ except that it is of a reddish-black color. Its fruits are used for tanning and dyeing in the same manner as divi-divi.
- noun In Panama, a bignoniaceous tree, Tecoma Guayacan.
Etymologies
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Examples
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Here we are referring to "guayacan" or "palo santo" (Guyacum officinialis) and
Chapter 12 1991
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Valuable timber species such as mahogany, cedar, 'siricote' and 'guayacan' are being exhausted through over-exploitation.
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Shooting down the cañon came a giant guayacan (a near relation of the true hard-wood trees which will not float); it must have stood a hundred and fifty feet before the water had eaten away the bank wherein it was rooted, and it had toppled over like a ninepin, to be swept, perhaps, hundreds of miles, and finally to be caught in the boulders and form yet another "snag."
Head Hunters of the Amazon: Seven Years of Exploration and Adventure 1923
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Here the guayacan, or guayacum of the arts, is found in great abundance.
The Western World Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North and South America William Henry Giles Kingston 1847
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The principal woods exported are mahogany, guayacan, known to commerce as lignum vitae (one of the hardest woods and so heavy that when in loading the steamer a log drops into the sea it sinks to the bottom like iron), bera or bastard lignum vitae, espinillo or yellowwood, campeche or logwood (a famous dyeing material), sparwood and cedar.
Santo Domingo A Country with a Future Otto Schoenrich
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(Dioscorea alata), copei (Clusia alba), guayacan (Guaiacum officinale), guajaba (Psidium pyriferum), guanavano (Anona muricata), mani (Arachis hypogaea), guama (Inga), henequen (was supposed from the erroneous accounts of the first travellers to be an herb with which the Haitians used to cut metals; it means now every kind of strong thread), hicaco
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(Dioscorea alata), copei (Clusia alba), guayacan (Guaiacum officinale), guajaba (Psidium pyriferum), guanavano (Anona muricata), mani (Arachis hypogaea), guama (Inga), henequen (was supposed from the erroneous accounts of the first travellers to be an herb with which the Haitians used to cut metals; it means now every kind of strong thread), hicaco (Chrysobalanus icaco), maghei
Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 1 Alexander von Humboldt 1814
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