redwood

Etymology

It is formed from English red + wood,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} for wood of a reddish colour.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The reddish wood of various trees, in early use especially brazil wood or another tropical dyewood: before 1533, in Lord Berners's translation of Guevara's Golden Boke.^[2] Merriam-Webster also gives about 1533,^[5] while Etymonline dates the word to the 1610s and the Shorter Oxford to the early 17th century.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

From 1693 the word named the trees themselves, any of several with reddish wood.^[2] Etymonline dates its use for various New World trees from 1716 and for the Californian sequoia, Sequoia sempervirens, from 1819;^[3] this tree, the tallest known, became the main sense, and its timber the usual meaning of the wood.^[4][2] In Scottish use a redwood was the heartwood of a tree, recorded only by Jamieson in 1825.^[2] Forestry has used it since 1916 for reaction or compression wood, especially in conifers.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1533 – reddish wood, especially tropical dyewood.^[2][5]
• 1693 – a tree with reddish wood.^[2]
• 1716 – various New World trees.^[3]
• 1819 – the California redwood, Sequoia sempervirens.^[3]
• 1825 – in Scottish use, heartwood (obsolete).^[2]
• 1916 – reaction or compression wood in conifers.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A very tall, long-lived evergreen conifer of coastal California and southern Oregon, Sequoia sempervirens, also called the coast redwood; also the related giant sequoia and dawn redwood.^[7][4][8][2]
2. The soft, reddish, decay-resistant timber of this tree.^[7][2]
3. Any of various other trees, chiefly tropical, that have reddish wood or yield a red dye, such as brazilwood.^[5][2][4]

Related words

• red
• wood

Usage notes

A Scottish adjective redwood, stark mad, has a separate source: red and the old adjective wood, mad.^[5][3] Etymonline records it from the 16th to the 18th century,^[3] and Dictionary.com dates it to 1550–60.^[6] The Redwood viscometer and the Redwood second, a unit for the viscosity of petroleum, are named after the English chemist Sir Boverton Redwood (1846–1919).^[2][4]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press