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 viðr, 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 woþs "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 woþ "sound, melody, song," Old Norse oðr "poetry," and the god-name Odin.
双语例句
1. The first task was to fence the wood to exclude sheep.
第一项任务就是把树林围起来不让羊进去。
来自柯林斯例句
2. The heady aroma of wood fires emanated from the stove.
炉子里散发出木柴燃烧时的浓烈香味。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Wood has not had much luck in carving out a career.
伍德想干出点名堂来，可是总不能如愿。
来自柯林斯例句
4. Rub the surface of the wood in preparation for the varnish.
打磨木头的表面，为刷清漆做准备。
来自柯林斯例句
5. The wood had been recently polished to bring back the shine.
