Firewood

How to spell firewood

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce firewood

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does firewood mean?

1. nounWood that has been cut and dried for burning as fuel.

Firewood in a sentence

• We stacked the firewood neatly against the shed wall.

• The cabin came with a large supply of seasoned firewood.

Where does firewood come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent native compound, formed by joining two very old Germanic words: 'fire', which comes from Old English 'fyr' meaning the flame or burning that warms and cooks, and 'wood', from Old English 'wudu' meaning a tree, a forest, or the timber it yields. Both halves trace back through the Germanic family to ancient roots, with 'fyr' related to forms across other Germanic languages and 'wudu' once also meaning a forest itself. The combined word simply names wood that has been gathered and cut for burning, a need so basic that the compound has been used in English for many centuries. Because both parts are short, familiar, everyday words, the spelling holds no surprises: it is literally 'fire' plus 'wood' with nothing dropped or changed at the join.

How the word is built

• fire (open flame)
• wood (timber)