ivory

Pluralivories (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The hard white form of dentin that makes up the tusks of elephants, walruses, and other animals.

   The international trade in ivory has been banned to protect wild elephants.

   Skilled artisans carved the walrus ivory into tiny figurines.

   Note

   A word that has traveled all the way from Egypt. Middle English yvory came through Anglo-Norman ivurie and Latin ebur from Egyptian ꜣbw, which meant elephant, ivory and the place Elephantine all at once. As a material it is uncountable (a piece of ivory, much ivory), and the animal goes in front to say whose tusk it came from: walrus ivory, elephant ivory.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A creamy white color, matching the pale shade of elephant tusks.

   The designer preferred ivory to stark white for the gallery walls.

   Old letters often fade to a warm ivory over the years.

   Similarcream, off-white, eggshell, bone, ecru

3. 3
   adjective

   Resembling or having the creamy white color of elephant tusks.

   His ivory shirt stood out against the dark suit.

   The cafe's ivory tablecloths gave it an elegant look.

   Similarcream, off-white, creamy, eggshell, ecru

4. 4
   adjective

   Made of the hard white material taken from elephant or walrus tusks.

   Collectors prize the antique ivory carvings of past centuries.

   The old chess set came with finely cut ivory pieces.

   Note

   Material and color share one spelling in the adjective, so context does the sorting. The canes with ivory heads in Joseph Crosby Lincoln's Mr. Pratt's Patients (1913) are made of tusk. The walls painted ivory in Interior Decoration To-day (1938) only have the shade, as with the color adjective. Neither use takes degrees, so there is no comparative form.

5. 5
   nouncountable or uncountable

   An object made from tusk material, or one that resembles it.

   The auction featured several antique ivories from across Asia.

   She displayed a tiny ivory beside the jade figures.

6. 6
   nouncollectivecountable or uncountable

   The keys of a piano, especially the white keys rather than the black ones.

   The jazz pianist's hands flew across the ivories all night.

   Each ivory on the antique grand had been carefully restored.

   Similarkey

   Oppositeebony

   Note

   The piano meaning is best known through an idiom: to tickle the ivories means to play the piano. When the keys are split by color, the white ones are the ivories and the black ones the ebonies, and the two words can stand together as a pair (a lamp placed near the ebonies and ivories). Either the singular or the plural can refer to the keys as a group.

7. 7
   nouncollectivecountable or uncountable

   A person's teeth, thought of as white like the material of tusks.

   The old sailor grinned, baring a row of yellowed ivories.

   A single chipped ivory spoiled his otherwise bright smile.

   Similartooth

8. 8
   nouncolloquialcountable or uncountable

   A die: a small numbered object thrown in games of chance.

   The gambler tossed the ivories across the green felt.

   He palmed a single ivory, weighing his next bet.

   Similardie, dice

9. 9
   nounslangethnicslurcountable or uncountable

   A white person, in slang use drawn from the pale, creamy color of ivory.

   The dockworkers nodded at the ivory who joined their card game.

   He was the rare ivory welcomed into the late-night gathering.

   Similarhonky, gringo, Caucasian, cracker, gweilo

   Note

   A slur, not a neutral description. This slang use labels a white person by skin color and carries the same hostility as other color-based ethnic epithets. Readers will meet it in quoted or reported speech, and it should stay there. It is not for a learner's own use, and it has nothing to do with the color adjective applied to paint and fabric.

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