wood
/wʊd/ noun, verb, adjective, proper noun
Forms woods wooding wooded wooder woodest wode
- noun (uncountable) The substance making up the central part of the trunk and branches of a tree. Used as a material for construction, to manufacture various items, etc. or as fuel. “This table is made of wood.”
- noun (countable) The wood from a particular species of tree. “Teak is much used for outdoor benches, but a number of other woods are also suitable, such as ipé, redwood, etc.”
- noun (countable, often as plurale tantum) A forested or wooded area. “A wood beyond this moor was viewed as a border area in the seventeenth century.”
- noun Firewood. “We need more wood for the fire.”
- noun (countable, golf) A type of golf club, the head of which was traditionally made of wood.
- noun (music) A woodwind instrument.
- noun (uncountable, slang) An erection of the penis. “That girl at the strip club gave me wood.”
- noun (chess, uncountable, slang) Chess pieces.
- verb (transitive) To cover or plant with trees.
- verb (reflexive, intransitive) To hide behind trees.
- verb (transitive) To supply with wood, or get supplies of wood for.
- verb (intransitive) To take or get a supply of wood.
- adjective (archaic) Mad, insane, crazed.
- noun (US, sometimes offensive, chiefly prison slang, of a person) A peckerwood.
- proper noun An English topographic surname for someone who lived in or near a wood.
- proper noun A surname originating as an occupation for a woodsman.
- proper noun A township in Clark County, Indiana.
- proper noun An unincorporated community in Clayton County, Iowa.
- proper noun An unincorporated community in DeKalb County, Missouri.
- proper noun An inactive township in Wright County, Missouri.
Synonyms
timber woods forest woodland wood lot Natalie Wood Sir Henry Wood Sir Henry Joseph Wood Mrs. Henry Wood Ellen Price Wood Grant Wood woodwind woodwind instrument
Etymology
From Middle English wode, from Old English wudu, widu (“wood, forest, grove; tree; timber”), from Proto-West Germanic *widu, from Proto-Germanic *widuz (“wood”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁weydʰh₁- (“to separate”). The spelling developed as it did in wool.
Cognate with Dutch wede (“wood, twig”), Middle High German wite (“wood”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish ved (“wood”), Elfdalian wið (“wood, timber”), Faroese and Icelandic viður (“wood”), Norwegian Nynorsk ved (“wood, firewood”), vid (“wide, broad”). Further cognates include Irish fiodh (“a wood, tree”), Old Irish fid (“tree”) and Welsh gwŷdd (“trees”), from Proto-Celtic *widus (“wood”). Unrelated to Dutch woud (“forest”), German Wald (“forest”) (see English wold).
From Middle English wood, from Old English wōd (“mad, insane”). See the full etymology at wode.
Back-formation from peckerwood.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Mad; insane; possessed; rabid; furious; frantic. [Obs.]
- verb To grow mad; to act like a madman; to mad. Chaucer.
- noun A large and thick collection of trees; a forest or grove; --frequently used in the plural.
- noun The substance of trees and the like; the hard fibrous substance which composes the body of a tree and its branches, and which is covered by the bark; timber. "To worship their own work in wood and stone for gods." Milton.
Etymology [OE. wod, AS. w; akin to OHG. wuot, Icel. , Goth. w, D. woede madness, G. wuth, wut, also to AS. w song, Icel. , L. vates a seer, a poet. Cf. Wednesday.]
Etymology [OE. wode, wude, AS. wudu, wiodu; akin to OHG. witu, Icel. vi, Dan. & Sw. ved wood, and probably to Ir. & Gael. fiodh, W. gwydd trees, shrubs.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “wood”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details