n. 1.variably colored and sometimes variegated hard tough elastic wood of a sycamore tree 2.any of several trees of the genus Platanus having thin pale bark that scales off in small plates and lobed leaves and ball-shaped heads of fruits 3.Eurasian maple tree with pale gray bark that peels in flakes like that of a sycamore tree 4.thick-branched wide-spreading tree of Africa and adjacent southwestern Asia often buttressed with branches rising from near the ground