Citations:accoma

English citations of accoma

Noun: “a Caribbean tree whose hard wood is used for shipbuilding”

• 1802, Ducœurjoly quoted by Pierre Rézeau, “Lexical aspects of French and Creole in Saint-Domingue at the end of the eighteenth century” in History, Society and Variation: In Honor of Albert Valdman (2006) ed. J. Clancy Clements, page 67

  acomas n. m. “The trees called bois de fer [“ironwood”], acajou [“mahogany”], and acomas [“false mastic”, Sideroxylon fœtidissimum] are the best for construction” (Bazalgues 1974:46a) and “The acomas is highly regarded as a hardwood for construction. It is still used in the building of ships” (Bazalgues 1974:118b). ♦ Attested since 1640, achomat (Bouton, in Petitjean 1980:305); 1654 (Du Tertre 1654:223); 1658 (Rochefort 1658:69); a borrowing from Carib. — “accoma, n. m., a large tree suitable for building, a very hard wood” [Creole: accoma] (Ducœurjoly 1802:287); Jourdain (1956:268), acomat; absent from Valdman (1981), akoma is included in the revised edition in progress; TLF; ROB; the FEW has no entry acomas.

• 1811, Joshua Montefiore, The American Trader’s Compendium, page 143

  DOMINGO, SAINT. This island is situated in the Atlantic ocean, fifty miles east of Cuba, and seventy miles east of Jamaica. The country is well stocked with cattle, oak, cedar, pine, Brazil wood, manchineal, the maho, and accoma tree; it produces cotton, tobacco, sugar, coffee, ginger, cocoa, indigo, and several gums and medicinal drugs. Since the revolution the west part of the island has been and continues subject to the most dreadful calamities. The trade to this island at present is very limited.

• 1894, Victor Hugo [aut.] and George Burnham Ives [tr.], Bug-Jargal: To which are added Claude Gueux, and The Last Days of a Condemned (Little, Brown), page 146

  […] suited for,’ continued the prisoner: ‘the chicaron and the sabiecca for a ship’s keel; the yaba for the knees; the tocuma for the ribs; the hacama, the gaïac, the cedar, the accoma — ’

Verb: typographical error for “accom[modate ]a”?

• 1998, Acadiensis (University of New Brunswick Department of History), volume 28, page 93

  […] 1995, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England extended its exhibition of Titanic artefacts by six months to accoma similar exhibit in Memphis, Tennessee […]