ivory palm
- noun
:
palma de marfil
- Artisans use the nuts from the ivory palm to make buttons and jewelry.
Examples
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The ivory palm is best known for its hard seeds, often carved to imitate animal ivory.
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Conservationists promote the cultivation of the ivory palm as an alternative to elephant ivory.
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The ivory palm is native to Brazil.
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Many ivory palms grow in the Amazon rainforest.
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Artisans use the nuts from the ivory palm to make buttons and jewelry.
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Conservationists promote the cultivation of the ivory palm as an alternative to elephant ivory.
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The ivory palm is best known for its hard seeds, often carved to imitate animal ivory.
Synonyms
A palm tree from Brazil and Peru that makes hard nuts used like ivory
A South American palm without a stem that makes hard white nuts used like elephant tusks
A South American palm tree with no visible trunk that produces hard white nuts used for carving
A small group of palm trees from South America with hard seeds like ivory used for carving
Surface Forms
Morphology
ivory + palm
The meaning — a palm tree associated with ivory or producing ivory-like nuts — is directly compositional from 'ivory' (the material) + 'palm' (the tree). This noun–noun compound follows a common pattern where the first noun specifies a material or product, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The noun ivory palm is named for a palm tree whose hard nuts look like ivory. People carve these nuts into buttons and jewelry as vegetable 'ivory', so the name now means a palm that produces seeds used like 'ivory'.
