greenheartn.
/ˈɡriːnhɑːt/, U.S. /ˈɡrinˌ(h)ɑrt/ 1.
a. The hard, heavy, greenish heartwood of the tree Chlorocardium rodiei (see sense 2(b)), whose uses include cabinetmaking and fishing rods, and which is especially valued for shipbuilding owing to its durability and resistance to marine borers. Also: the similar wood of any of several other tropical and South American trees.
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society > occupation and work > materials > raw material > wood > wood of specific trees > [noun] > other woods of West Indies and Central America
guaiacum1533
guaiac1558
lignum vitae1594
sweetwood1607
green ebony1665
princewoodc1665
alligator wood1696
pimento wood1712
greenheart1719
mahoea1726
galimeta-wood1756
determa1769
bullet-wood1843
cocobolo1849
lancewood1858
silver-balli1858
yari-yari1858
Honduras rosewood1860
sabicu1866
amarant1909
1719 W. Gordon Representation Miserable State Barbadoes 27 There were about Thirty Sail of Vessels, employ'd in bringing Mastick, Fustick, Greenheart, and other Dying and Hard Wood, and Turtle.
1738 J. Bennett Two Lett. Sugar Colonies & Trade App. 63 That Care be taken to preserve a sufficient Quantity of hard Timber..such as Green Heart, Bully Tree, Mastick, Fustick, Purple Heart, and the like.
1794 D. Steel Elements & Pract. Rigging & Seamanship I. 151 Green-heart, a wood imported from the West Indies, used for the pins of blocks.
1825 C. Waterton Wanderings in S. Amer. i. 5 The green-heart, famous for hardness and durability; the hackea, for its toughness.
1863 Times 19 Mar. 14/2 In the main and lower decks, teak, mahogany, and greenheart are used almost exclusively.
1875 J. D. Heath Compl. Croquet-player 26 Handles are generally made of ash, but greenheart and Canadian rock elm are more springy and elastic.
1910 Field & Stream Feb. 942/2 We feel more satisfied to look friend or opponent in the face, if we are the possessor of a single-piece rod, either of greenheart, noibwood, split bamboo, or bethebara.
1959 Mariner's Mirror 45 231 To the Ceres we fitted a greenheart hog-piece and an oak archboard.
1999 T. Quinn & P. Felix Last of Line 29/1 The first big breakthrough came in the nineteenth century, when greenheart began to be used for rod-making.
b. A fishing rod made of this wood.
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the world > food and drink > hunting > fishing > fishing-tackle > rod > [noun] > types of rod
pole1577
telescope pole1675
fly-rod1684
dopper1688
whipper1688
bag-rod1787
telescope rod1820
salmon rod1841
greenheart1869
spinning-rod1870
loop-rod1885
roach pole1892
trunk-rod1893
sea-rod1902
1869 G. C. Scott Fishing in Amer. Waters ii. v. 211 The rod is twenty feet long, and not more than three fourths the weight of a greenheart or hickory of the same length.
1894 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. July 67 The rod..was a 13-foot single-handed greenheart with one splice.
1920 O. W. Smith Casting Tackle & Methods i. 16 You will make no mistake in investing in a greenheart.
1939 ‘G. Orwell’ Coming up for Air iv. iii. 246 I'd always pined for a split-cane rod as a boy—it's a little bit dearer than a greenheart.
2006 N.Z. Herald (Nexis) 27 May (Sport section) In New Zealand, greenhearts were still available in tackle shops in the 1930s.
2. Any of several tropical and South American trees used for their hard durable timber; esp. (a) the cogwood tree of Jamaica, Ziziphus chloroxylon; (b) a large evergreen laurel tree of northern South America, Chlorocardium rodiei (cf. sense 1a); (c) (more fully West Indian greenheart) a small tree, Colubrina ferruginosa (family Rhamnaceae), of Jamaica (also called snakewood).bastard, false greenheart: see the first element.
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the world > plants > particular plants > cultivated or valued plants > particular timber trees or shrubs > non-British timber trees > [noun] > of South America or West Indies > greenheart
greenheart1756
sipeera-tree1769
bebeeru-
1756 P. Browne Civil & Nat. Hist. Jamaica ii. ii. 187 The Greenheart or Cogwood Tree... It is generally esteemed one of the best timber-woods in the island.
1769 E. Bancroft Ess. Nat. Hist. Guiana 333 They contentedly recur to the use of Sipera, or Green-Hart-tree Apples.
1796 J. G. Stedman Narr. Exped. Surinam II. xxviii. 335 The brown-heart is in hardness of the same consistency as the purple-heart, and the green-heart.
1811–12 W. J. Titford Sketches Hortus Botanicus Americanus explan. Pl. VII. Jamaica Laurel, Greenheart, or Cogwood Tree (L. chloroxylon), is esteemed the best timber wood in Jamaica, and used always for the cogs or rollers in sugar mills.
a1832 Encycl. Metrop. (1845) XX. 6/2 The timber of the Green Hart, or Sipiera tree, is very valuable.
1839 M. J. Higgins Ess. (1875) xvii Moras, greenhearts, and silk~cotton trees, rearing their heads far above the other giants of the forest.
1874 F. G. D. Bedford Sailor's Pocket Bk. ix. 291 The Morra and Greenheart of British Guiana.
1920 O. W. Smith Casting Tackle & Methods i. 15 True greenheart grows only in British Guiana, where immense forests of the trees are to be found.
1978 Post–Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) 7 Dec. 1/4 The indigenous purpleheart and greenheart trees were of such hard wood that the pilgrims ruined their saws trying to clear them.
2005 C. Tudge Secret Life Trees vi. 134 But most famous of all the Lauraceae timbers comes from the greenheart (O. rodiaei), the pride of Guyana.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2011; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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