logwood
log wood
- n very hard brown to brownish-red heartwood of a logwood tree; used in preparing a purplish red dye
- n spiny shrub or small tree of Central America and West Indies having bipinnate leaves and racemes of small bright yellow flowers and yielding a hard brown or brownish-red heartwood used in preparing a black dye
- Swollen bodies floating like logwood down to Canton bore mute corroboration.
- In the 16th and 17th centuries it was the haunt of Spanish bucaneros and English slavers, of logwood cutters and warm-sea riffraff.