Ash

How to spell ash

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce ash

What does ash mean?

1. nounThe greyish powdery residue that remains after a substance has been burned.
2. nounA common deciduous tree with grey bark and hard, pale wood often used for tool handles and furniture.

Ash in a sentence

• A fine layer of ash coated the inside of the wood stove.

• The carpenter chose ash for the chair frames because the wood is strong and flexible.

• She swept the cold ash from the fireplace before lighting a new fire.

• A mature ash shaded the whole back garden by midsummer.

Where does ash come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English æsce, meaning the soft, powdery grey residue left after something has burned. It belongs to a wider Germanic family that includes the Dutch as and the German Asche, all tracing back to a Proto-Germanic root for the leftover dust of a fire. The spelling settled early and simply, which is why the modern word stays just three letters with no silent traps. Interestingly, the tree called the ash is a separate Old English word, æsc, that happened to fall together with the fire residue in modern spelling; the two have quite different origins despite looking identical today. The fire sense also gave English the everyday compounds 'ashtray' and 'Ash Wednesday', the latter named for the medieval practice of marking the forehead with ashes.

How the word is built

• ash (from Old English æsce 'powdery residue of fire'); a single unanalysable root word with no prefix or suffix