bilian

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English

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Malay belian.

Noun

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bilian (uncountable)

  1. A hardwood tree, Eusideroxylon zwageri, of Malaysia, Borneo, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
    • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 272:
      With forests of bilian - a wood which is used all over the East for similar purposes - within a few days' sail of Port Darwin, in British North Borneo, it is strange that a market at such a distance was selected, more especially as it would have benefited both countries to have had some interchange of trade.
  2. The timber of this tree, impervious to white-ants.