amoy

name

1. (dated)Former name of Xiamen: a prefecture-level city and subprovincial city of Fujian, in southeastern China.

   “Near the Coaſt of the Province of Fokien lie Quemuy and Eymuy : Further off at Sea, oppoſite to them, appear Formoſa and Tayowan ; the firſt by the Chineſes, who now poſſeſs it, call'd Talieukich ; but to the Eaſt, near the Province Chekiang are the Iſles Changque and Chenxan.”

   “Leaving Namoa, and sailing up the coast towards Amoy, the stranger is continually struck with the barren rocky nature of the coast, and in some parts has a view of hills of sand, the particles of which, when a hurricane blows, mix with the wind, and whiten the ropes of vessels and render it most unpleasant to be in the vicinity.”

   “He told me of a place on the mainland, near his native village—some seventy miles up the coast, between Foochow and Amoy—where game was plentiful, and sportsmen rare.”

   “The tea grown in the southern Fukien hills goes out through Amoy; in a shallow bay on one side of town there stand out of the mud at low tide hundreds of upright granite blocks like Western tombstones, on which oysters are grown. But the only unique industry Amoy and its island seem to boast is the making of toy cats, dogs, lions, tigers, and even more fearsome beasts from mud gaudily painted, the heads and tails so balanced that they wag gravely back and forth.”

2. The Amoy dialect of the Hokkien language.
3. (dated)The Hokkien language.