drywall

Etymology

It is formed from English dry + wall.^[2][3] The older spelling, still used for the stone wall, is dry wall; for the building board the OED notes that the closed spelling is now usual.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A wall built without mortar, usually of stone: 1598, in John Florio's Italian–English dictionary A Worlde of Wordes.^[2] Etymonline dates this sense to 1778.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The modern sense, a lightweight board of plaster used for inside walls in place of wet plaster, is originally and chiefly North American; the OED records it from 1937, in the Cincinnati Enquirer.^[2] Merriam-Webster gives 1946, and Etymonline finds the plasterboard sense by 1952.^[5][3] Merriam-Webster labels the word as American;^[5] Collins gives only the older sense, a wall without mortar, and a verb meaning to build one.^[6] The board sense also gave a verb, to put up and finish drywall, and the agent noun drywaller.^[1]

Timeline

• 1598 – a wall built without mortar, usually of stone (as dry wall).^[2] Etymonline dates it to 1778.^[3][4]
• 1937 – a building board of plaster, chiefly North American.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1946, Etymonline to 1952.^[5][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A building material for inside walls and ceilings, made of sheets of gypsum plaster faced with heavy paper; plasterboard: They hung drywall in the new bedroom over the weekend.^[5][2][1][3]
2. A wall built of such boards.^[1]
3. A wall of stone built without mortar.^[6][2][4]

Verb

1. To build a wall without mortar.^[6]
2. To put up and finish drywall.^[1]

Related words

• drystone

Usage notes

In the sense of a stone wall without mortar, dry wall is chiefly a word of the northeastern and central Atlantic United States, where a stone fence of this kind is also called a dry fence.^[4] In the Caribbean, in the Bahamas, Montserrat, Nevis, St Kitts and the Turks and Caicos Islands, a dry-wall is a waist-high wall of carefully stacked loose stones used as a fence or for terracing.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ Allsopp, Richard, ed. (1996), Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, Oxford: Oxford University Press