Woodworking

How to spell woodworking

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce woodworking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does woodworking mean?

1. nounThe activity or craft of making things from wood, such as furniture or cabinets.

Woodworking in a sentence

• He took up woodworking after retiring and built a workbench in the garage.

• The evening class covers basic woodworking skills like sawing and joining.

Where does woodworking come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound built from two of the language's oldest words. 'Wood' descends from the Old English 'wudu', meaning a tree or the substance of trees, while 'work' comes from the Old English 'weorc', meaning labour or a deed, both rooted firmly in the Germanic family of words. The pairing simply names the craft of shaping timber, and the '-ing' ending turns the act of working wood into a noun for the activity itself. Although the two parts are ancient, the joined-up compound 'woodworking' is comparatively modern, becoming common in the 1800s as a label for the trade and later the hobby. Because every part is a familiar everyday word, the only spelling care needed is remembering it is written as a single solid compound, with no space and no hyphen.

How the word is built

• wood (timber)
• work (to shape/labour)
• -ing (gerund/noun suffix)