Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small Mediterranean tree (Pistacia terebinthus) that is a source of tanning material and turpentine.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The turpentine-tree, Pistacia Terebinthus, native in the lands about the Mediterranean, the source of Chian turpentine. It is a tree of moderate size, with pinnate leaves and panicles of inconspicuous flowers. It is common in the hot and dry southern and eastern parts of Palestine, there taking the place of the oak. It generally stands isolated, seldom in clumps, never in forests, and is an object of veneration. Also named Algerine or Barbary mastic-tree.
- n. Turpentine.
Wiktionary
- n. A Mediterranean tree, Pistacia palaestina or Pistacia terebinthus.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) The turpentine tree.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a Mediterranean tree yielding Chian turpentine
Etymologies
- Middle English terebinthe, from Old French terebinte, from Latin terebinthus, from Greek terebinthos. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Hos. 4: 13; rendered "terebinth" in the Revised Version.”
“Next to the "terebinth" was the tomb of the favorite horse of Lucius”
“terebinth" or "large tree" generally, would seem to indicate that originally El or Elath was marked by a large grove of perhaps terebinths.”
“For example, one of the Canaanite epithets of Asherah, elat, “goddess,” is etymologically identical to the Hebrew word for the terebinth tree (ela).”
“Another word for “terebinth” (alla) and two words for “oak” (elon and allon) are also closely related.”
“Five or six stand in the shade of a terebinth, watching a Phoenician juggle bright purple balls.”
“Suddenly he finds himself stunned by a blow while his head is caught in the fork of the low hanging branches of a terebinth tree.”
“A slave followed with a terebinth table and crystal dice, and I noted one piece of luxury that was superlative; for instead of black and white pieces, he used gold and silver coins.”
“Much of the wealth that came out of Arabia and India was related to this resin, taken from the bark of the terebinth tree.”
“The mostly treeless steppe, where silvery wormwoods, shrubby chenopods, and stands of tall grasses once extended as far as the eye could see, began yielding to woodlands of oak, terebinth, almond, maple, and hawthorn.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘terebinth’.
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yoshiyahu's Words
meme, disingenuous, antebellum, hypnagogic, philtrum, transference, prototypical, janissary, tuareg, shoal, caltrop, bannister and 89 more...
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Forgotten English 1
jacal, mastaba, lucarne, quoin, triglyph, gargarice, nimgimmer, phrenologize, fleam, eaglestone, toad eater, king's evil and 156 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1406 more...
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Discovered in the Word Museum
Words found in Jeffrey Kacirk's "The Word Museum"
yeth-hounds, yird-swine, shivviness, st patrick's needle, outcumlins, noctuary, quignogs, queachy, urtication, rigmutton, probang, mucksluff and 65 more...
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Whatever you rolled in, it sure smell...
aka words having to do with scent
oude, sillage, vanilla, chypre, mephitic, noisome, opoponax, patchouli, cardamom, grains of paradise, rice flower, chamomile and 67 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for terebinth.
knitandpurl "The vegetation on the trail—terebinth and spiny hawthorn—was dry and gnarled."
"The Unconsoled" by George Packer, p 61 of the September 27, 2010 edition of The New Yokrer Oct 3, 2010