Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. The dried acorn cups of an oak tree (Quercus aegilops) of the eastern Mediterranean, used chiefly in tanning and dyeing.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. The European evergreen oak, Quercus macrolepis or Quercus aegilops
- n. The dried acorn cups of this tree, that are used to make a black dye, used in tanning
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. The acorn cup of two kinds of oak (Quercus macrolepis, and Quercus vallonea) found in Eastern Europe. It contains an abundance of tannin, and is much used by tanners and dyers.
- n. A genus of marine green algæ, in which the whole frond consists of a single oval or cylindrical cell, often an inch in length.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The commercial name for the acorn-cups of the valonia-oak, which are imported into Great Britain in large quantities from Asia Minor and Greece for use in tanning, dyeing, and making ink.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
Examples
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The first process -- the making of leather -- does not lie within the scope of this work; suffice it to say, that the hair or fur is first removed by lime, etc, and that after the skin is scraped it is treated variously with oak bark, valonia, sumach, divi-divi, etc.; it is a long and tedious process, and certainly does not lie within the province of
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Its main use was and is in combination with valonia as layers for sole leather.
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The union of valonia and knoppern is that in most general use.
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Its use is almost wholly confined to the handlers, as its weight returns are not so satisfactory as oak or valonia.
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The combination of knoppern, valonia and myrabolams is also quite popular, and gives good results.
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To sole leather there are usually given from one to three layers of valonia.
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The demand for valonia is increasing more and more every year, and the present outlook does not indicate any relaxation of its popularity.
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The _Metilino_ valonia is a product of a neighboring island, and is a very good article.
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The _Candia_ valonia is nearly as long as it is wide, in contrast to the Smyrna, which is much wider than long.
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The best valonia is derived from Smyrna, and is naturally the highest priced article.
knitandpurl commented on the word valonia
"A specially commissioned report, commending 'the alluvial nature of the soil', listed the valley's crops 'of all kinds from the rarest to the coarsest qualities. Tobacco, the fig, the vine, the olive, the poppy, the cotton plant and mulberry tree are all indigenous products, whilst maize, barley, beans, flax, hemp and a variety of pulse and oleaginous seeds are raised in large quantities. Valonia, yellow-berries, wool, goats' hair, dyestuffs, drugs, skins, honey, wax and likewise abound.' The only hindrance was the primitive condition of the region's Ottoman infrastructure; by revolutionising the pre-industrial carriage of the valley's largely perishable produce, the railway company's backers meant to make a killing."
Meander: East to West, Indirectly, Along a Turkish River by Jeremy Seal, p 270 of the Bloomsbury USA hardcover edition
September 1, 2012