Boxwood

[f. BOX sb.¹ + WOOD sb.]

  1.  The wood of the box-tree; much used by turners, wood-engravers, and in the manufacture of mathematical and musical instruments.

1652.  Proc. Parliament, No. 131. 2025. 834 Logs of Box wood.

1767.  Richardson, in Phil. Trans., LVIII. 20. Two … of brass, and two of box-wood.

1855.  Singleton, Virgil, II. 351. Inlaid in boxwood, or in ebony.

  2.  The tree or shrub itself.

1768.  Boswell, Corsica, i. (ed. 2), 49. Its honey hath always been accounted better, by reason of the boxwood and yew.

1871.  M. Collins, Mrq. & Merch., II. vii. 197. Fringes of boxwood grew here and there.

  3.  American Boxwood, Cornus florida; a deciduous tree of North America, having very heavy close-grained wood, the bark of which is used as a substitute for Peruvian bark; Jamaica Boxwood, Tecoma pentaphylla.

  4.  attrib.

c. 1865.  J. Wylde, in Circ. Sc., I. 314/1. Boxwood charcoal answers best.

1880.  Printing Times, 15 May, 116/1. One or two remaining Abkhasian boxwood forests.