wood: [OE] The ancestral meaning of wood is probably ‘collection of trees, forest’; ‘tree’ (now obsolete) and ‘substance from which trees are made’ are secondary developments. The word goes back to prehistoric Germanic *widuz, which also produced Swedish and Danish ved ‘firewood’, and it has Celtic relatives in Gaelic fiodh ‘wood, woods’, Welsh gwydd ‘trees’, and Breton gwez ‘trees’.
Its ultimate source is not known for certain, although it has been suggested that it may go back to the Indo- European base *weidh- ‘separate’ (source also of English divide and widow). According to this theory, it would originally have denoted a ‘separated’ or ‘remote’ piece of territory, near the outer edge or borders of known land; and since such remote, uninhabited areas were usually wooded, it came to denote ‘forest’ (forest itself may mean etymologically ‘outside area’, and the Old Norse word for ‘forest’, mork, originally signified ‘border area’).
wood (n.)
Old English wudu, earlier widu "tree, trees collectively, forest, grove; the substance of which trees are made," from Proto-Germanic *widu- (cognates: Old Norse vier, Danish and Swedish ved "tree, wood," Old High German witu "wood"), from PIE *widhu- "tree, wood" (cognates: Welsh gwydd "trees," Gaelic fiodh- "wood, timber," Old Irish fid "tree, wood"). Out of the woods "safe" is from 1792.
wood (adj.)
"violently insane" (now obsolete), from Old English wod "mad, frenzied," from Proto-Germanic *woda- (cognates: Gothic wots "possessed, mad," Old High German wuot "mad, madness," German wut "rage, fury"), from PIE *wet- (1) "to blow; inspire, spiritually arouse;" source of Latin vates "seer, poet," Old Irish faith "poet;" "with a common element of mental excitement" [Buck]. Compare Old English wot "sound, melody, song," Old Norse oer "poetry," and the god-name Odin.
雙語例句
1. The first task was to fence the wood to exclude sheep.
第一項任務就是把樹林圍起來不讓羊進去。
來自柯林斯例句
2. The heady aroma of wood fires emanated from the stove.
爐子里散發出木柴燃燒時的濃烈香味。
來自柯林斯例句
3. Wood has not had much luck in carving out a career.
伍德想干出點名堂來，可是總不能如愿。
來自柯林斯例句
4. Rub the surface of the wood in preparation for the varnish.
打磨木頭的表面，為刷清漆做準備。
來自柯林斯例句
5. The wood had been recently polished to bring back the shine.