olivant

1) This is an obsolete spelling of ‘elephant’, less usual than ‘oliphant’, but retained in the sense of ivory, especially as one of the hafting materials used by Sheffield cutlers.

In 1616, an Eckington cutler called Roger Barber had a quantity of olivant in his smithy and when George Harrison died in 1690 the finished goods in his inventory included 6 olivante Spring knives

that is ivory-hafted penknives.

places Eckington
dates 1616

Related Content Loading...

Photo by Kreuzschnabel CC BY-SA 3.0