valonia

Noun

Any of species Quercus macrolepis, now subspecies Quercus ithaburensis subsp. macrolepis or Quercus aegilops of European evergreen oak trees
A dried acorn cups of this tree, which are used to make a black dye, used in tanning.
pl. -S a substance obtained from dried acorn cups and used in tanning and dyeing

Origin / Etymology

From the Venetan name Valona of the now Albanian city Vlorë around which it grows unlike in Italy; but an occasional acquaintance at first and one of the principal sources of tannin in the English-speaking world only in the late 19th century, largely imported from the Ottoman Empire, Smyrna being the main trading centre for it, whence to Trieste it passed the first time in 1842 to reach the Austro-Hungarian leather industry and becoming popular in the German Reich only by the 1880s.

Scrabble Score: 10

valonia: valid Scrabble (US) TWL word
valonia: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
valonia: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 13

valonia is a valid Words With Friends word