Etymologically
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fir

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English firre, also fir and firr,[2][3] probably borrowed from Old Norse fyri- (“fir”), known only in compounds such as fyriskógr (“fir wood”),[4][5][6][7][8] or perhaps from Danish fyr.[8][9] The Middle English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com instead derive it from Old English fyrh, also furh,[2][10][11] which is recorded only in the compound furhwudu (“pine wood”), a gloss for Latin pīnus;[8][3][7] the OED leaves both open,[12] and Barnhart thinks the Scandinavian source more likely.[3] Etymonline notes that Middle English fyrre glosses Latin abies, the fir, rather than the pine.[8] Either way the word goes back to Proto-Germanic *furhō,[13][14][3][12] the source also of Old Saxon furie (“pine”), Old High German forha, German Föhre (“pine”), Old Norse fura and Swedish fura,[3][12][9] and further to Proto-Indo-European *pérkʷus (“oak”),[13][15] which gave Latin quercus (“oak”).[8][3][7][12] An ablaut variant appears in vereh-eih and Lombardic fereha, both names for a kind of oak.[12][8] Etymonline, following Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, connects Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌲𐌿𐌽𐌹 (fairguni, “mountain”) and firgen (“mountain forest”).[8][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The fir tree: probably about 1300, according to Barnhart, and as firr before 1325 in the Cursor Mundi;[3] the Middle English Dictionary's first quotation is from about 1350, in a word list that names "mapul, fyr, and mulberetre",[2] and the OED's from about 1381, in Chaucer's Parlement of Foules.[12]

Semantic evolution

Ayto explains that the Indo-European tree name meant "oak" in Latin, while the Germanic languages applied it to the pine;[7] Old English furh died out, and its place was taken in meaning by pine and in form by Middle English firre, which named the fir rather than the pine.[7] Before that the fir had been called sæppe or gyr in Old English.[7] Etymonline cites Gamkrelidze and Ivanov for the view that the old word for the mountain oak shifted to conifers as these displaced oaks in the forests of northern Europe.[8] From the late 14th century fir also meant the wood,[12][2] and Johnson (1755) described it as "the tree of which deal-boards are made".[16] The name is now given to several conifers of different genera, chiefly Abies.[12][17] In Scotland fir was also bog fir used as candle wood (1813),[12] and the dialects had fir-apple and fir-ball for a fir cone.[18] American drug slang has used fir for marijuana since the 1980s.[19]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – fir, the tree.[3]
  • before 1325 – firr, in the Cursor Mundi.[3]
  • c. 1350 – fyr, in a Latin–English word list.[2]
  • c. 1381 – the tree, in Chaucer's Parlement of Foules.[12]
  • before 1398 – the wood of the fir, in Trevisa.[12]
  • 1755 – Johnson: "the tree of which deal-boards are made".[16]
  • 1813 – Scottish, candle fir.[12]
  • 1984 – drug slang, marijuana.[19]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Any of the evergreen coniferous trees of the genus Abies, with flat needles and upright cones.[17][10][12]
  2. Any of various other cone-bearing trees, such as the Douglas fir.[17][10][12]
  3. The wood of these trees.[17][12]

Word family

  • firry

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
  14. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  15. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  16. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  17. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  19. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com