Word.ws English Dictionary

mahogany

/məˈhɒɡəni/US/məˈhɑɡəni/

mahogany noun: the valuable wood of any of various tropical American evergreen trees, of the genus Swietenia, mostly used to make furniture.

mahogany: the valuable wood of any of various tropical American evergreen trees, of the genus Swietenia,...
Image: J.M.Garg, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

mahogany (countable and uncountable, plural mahoganies)

  1. (error-lua-exec, uncountable) The valuable wood of any of various tropical American evergreen trees, of the genus Swietenia, mostly used to make furniture.
    • A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away[…].1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
    • In 2003, at Neal Auction Company in New Orleans, an 1810s mahogany armoire inlaid with ribbons and vines brought $140,000 (the presale estimate was $30,000 to $50,000).2010 December 9, Eve M. Kahn, “Exploring the Art of Louisiana Furniture”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 18 Jun 2020
  2. (countable, error-lua-exec) Any of the trees from which such wood comes.
  3. (countable, error-lua-exec) (by extension) Any of various kinds of trees, the timber of which resembles that of trees the genus Swietenia.
  4. (error-lua-exec, regional) A Cornish drink made from gin and treacle.
    • William Murdoch […] produced a bottle of port; but I chose mahogany (two parts gin and one part treacle, which Lord Eliot made us at Sir Joshua Reynolds's as a Cornish liquor, but it seems they make it also with brandy, and often add porter to it).1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 178
    • Next day, the fish was 'scrowled' on a gridiron over the fire and eaten with 'mahogany', a powerful mixture of black treacle and gin, a favourite tipple of Cornish fishermen for keeping out the cold!2006, Sara Paston-Williams, Fish: Recipes from a Busy Island, page 39
  5. (error-lua-exec) A reddish-brown color, like that of mahogany wood.
    • Better she, my dear, than a black Mrs. Sedley, and a dozen of mahogany grandchildren.1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 6, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC
  6. (colloquial, error-lua-exec, obsolete) A table made from mahogany wood; a dining table.
    • Poets eat and drink without stint — and seldom at their own cost — for what man of mark or likelihood in the moneyed world is there, who is not eager to get their legs under his mahogany?1842, Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal
    • Yet habit—strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?—Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany […]1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

Adjective

mahogany (comparative more mahogany, superlative most mahogany)

  1. (error-lua-exec) Made of mahogany.
  2. (error-lua-exec) Having the colour of mahogany; dark reddish-brown.

Proper noun capitalized: Mahogany

Mahogany

  1. A barangay of Butuan, Agusan del Norte, Philippines.

mahogany meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

mahogany in Hindi

tree
महोगनी mahognī
wood
महोगनी mahognī

mahogany in Tamil

மஹோகனி, மஹோகணி, மகோகனி

mahogany in Marathi

महोगनी, महोगानी, माहोगनी

mahogany in Urdu

مہوگنی, مہوگانی
More languagesFewer languages
mahogany in Bengali
মেহগিনি
mahogany in Telugu
మహోగనీ, మహోగని, మహోగాని
mahogany in Malayalam
മഹാഗണി mahāgaṇi
mahogany in Kannada
ಮಹೋಗಾನಿ, ಮಹೋಗನಿ, ಮಹೋಗಣಿ
mahogany in Punjabi
ਮਹੋਗਨੀ, ਮਹੋਗਾਨੀ, ਮਾਹੋਗਨੀ
mahogany in Gujarati
મહોગની mahognī
mahogany in Odia
ମହୋଗାନି, ମହୋଗାନୀ, ମହୋଗନୀ
mahogany in Nepali
महोगनी, महोगानी, माहोगनी
mahogany in Tagalog
kaoba
mahogany in Arabic
مَاهُوجَنِي māhūganī
mahogany in Malay
mahogani
mahogany in Indonesian
mahoni
mahogany in Thai
มะฮอกกานี mahokkani
mahogany in Vietnamese
dái ngựa

Examples of mahogany in a sentence

  • Because mahoganies yield a supple fine-grained wood, they are often used as veneer wood.
  • The seat frames are made of five layers of mahogany, as they were in the Schwarzenburg chairs.
  • What with you and my other bald mahogany gas pipe here.

All 23 example sentences with mahogany

Forms of mahogany

Noun
pluralmahoganies
alternative formmahoganey
alternative formmahoganee
alternative formmahogeney
alternative formmahogeny
alternative formmohogeny
alternative formmohogeney
alternative formmahagony
alternative formmahagoney
Adjective
comparativemore mahogany
superlativemost mahogany

Origin of mahogany

A word of unknown origin, concocted in either English or Middle Dutch from one or more exotic phytonyms and common European words. alternative etymologies Alternatively from Portuguese mogano, mógono, obsolete forms of mogno, itself of unknown origin (often suggested to be from the English word instead of the reverse), perhaps from an extinct indigenous language, such as a Mayan language originally spoken in Honduras or a South American language, but no known cognates survive. Another theory attempts to link Yoruba moganwo (“trees”, literally “tall ones”), but this has been criticized.

Words formed from mahogany

Phrases with mahogany

3 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with mahogany

Questions about mahogany

What does mahogany mean?
Mahogany means the valuable wood of any of various tropical American evergreen trees, of the genus Swietenia, mostly used to make furniture.
What is mahogany in Hindi?
Mahogany in Hindi is महोगनी (mahognī). See Mahogany meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is mahogany?
Mahogany can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce mahogany?
Mahogany is pronounced /məˈhɒɡəni/ (UK).
What is the plural of mahogany?
The plural of mahogany is mahoganies.

Words near mahogany in the dictionary

  1. mahoganies
  2. mahoganize
  3. mahoganized
  4. mahoganizes
  5. mahoganizing
  6. mahogany
  7. mahogany acid
  8. mahogany acids
  9. mahogany browning
  10. mahogany clam
  11. mahogany clams

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mahogany (page history and authors); Mahogany (page history and authors); mahogany (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mahogany (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mahogany (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mahogany (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mahogany (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); മഹാഗണി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); mahogany (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mahogany (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mahogany (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mahogany (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-mahogany.wav.

Cite this entry: “mahogany.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mahogany. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.