# wood

Pronunciation: say "WUUD" /wʊd/

## Noun

1. The hard material that forms the trunk and branches of trees, used for building, making things, or burning as fuel; a particular kind of it.
   - Simple: The hard stuff that trees are made of, used to build things or burn in fires.
   - _The carpenter sanded the wood until it felt smooth._
   - _Much of the world's furniture is made from tropical wood._
2. An area of land covered with growing trees.
   - Simple: A small area of land covered with growing trees.
   - _We took a shortcut through the wood behind the church._
   - _A deer darted out of the wood and across the road._
4. An erection of the penis. *(slang)*
   - Simple: When a man's penis becomes hard and stiff.
   - _He woke with morning wood and rolled over, annoyed._
   - _Tight jeans did little to hide his sudden wood._
5. A type of golf club with a large rounded head, traditionally made of wood, used to drive the ball over long distances.
   - Simple: A golf club with a large rounded head, used to hit the ball a long way.
   - _She pulled out her three wood for the long fairway shot._
   - _He drove the ball nearly 250 yards with his new wood._

## Verb

3. To cover an area with trees, or to plant trees on it.
   - Simple: To plant trees across a piece of land.
6. To supply something, such as a steamboat, with wood for fuel, or to take on a supply of wood.
   - Simple: To give or get a supply of wood to burn.

## Verb

7. To take cover or conceal oneself behind trees. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To hide among or behind trees.

## Adjective

8. Mad, insane, or wildly out of one's senses. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Out of your mind and completely crazy.

## Other meanings

- (noun) A woodwind instrument, or the woodwind instruments of an ensemble taken together.
- (noun) The pieces used in a game of chess, regarded collectively as physical objects.
- (noun) Chiefly in US prison slang, a white person, especially a white inmate; a clipping of peckerwood, sometimes used as an insult.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–7** — "Wood" comes from Middle English "wode," from Old English "wudu" or "widu" (wood, forest, grove, tree, timber), from Proto-Germanic *widuz, probably from a Proto-Indo-European root *h₁weydʰh₁- meaning "to separate." It is related to Danish, Swedish and Norwegian "ved," Icelandic "viður," and Irish "fiodh" (a wood, tree), but not to Dutch "woud" or German "Wald" (forest).
**Meaning 8** — This sense comes from Middle English "wood," from Old English "wōd" meaning "mad, insane."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/wood (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).