English Dictionary

FIR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does fir mean? 

FIR (noun)
  The noun FIR has 2 senses:

1. nonresinous wood of a fir treeplay

2. any of various evergreen trees of the genus Abies; chiefly of upland areasplay

  Familiarity information: FIR used as a noun is rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


FIR (noun)


Sense 1

Meaning:

Nonresinous wood of a fir tree

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("fir" is a kind of...):

wood (the hard fibrous lignified substance under the bark of trees)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fir"):

douglas fir (strong durable timber of a douglas fir)

Holonyms ("fir" is a substance of...):

fir; fir tree; true fir (any of various evergreen trees of the genus Abies; chiefly of upland areas)


Sense 2

Meaning:

Any of various evergreen trees of the genus Abies; chiefly of upland areas

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

fir; fir tree; true fir

Hypernyms ("fir" is a kind of...):

conifer; coniferous tree (any gymnospermous tree or shrub bearing cones)

Meronyms (parts of "fir"):

fir cone (the seed-producing cone of a fir tree)

Meronyms (substance of "fir"):

fir (nonresinous wood of a fir tree)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fir"):

silver fir (any of various true firs having leaves white or silvery white beneath)

Abies bracteata; Abies venusta; bristlecone fir; Santa Lucia fir (a pyramidal fir of southwestern California having spiny pointed leaves and cone scales with long spines)

Holonyms ("fir" is a member of...):

Abies; genus Abies (true firs)


 Context examples 


" I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs: all was moorland loneliness and midnight hush.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Just beyond it is a nice little grove of Scotch firs, and I used to be very fond of strolling down there, for trees are always a neighbourly kind of things.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Siberian fir oil is used in aromatherapy and perfumes.

(Abies sibirica Leaf Oil, NCI Thesaurus)

Very close around the stockade—too close for defence, they said—the wood still flourished high and dense, all of fir on the land side, but towards the sea with a large admixture of live-oaks.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Beyond was a young fir plantation, and over its olive line there rose a white whirl which drifted swiftly, like a cloud-scud on a breezy day.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His cowl was thrown back upon his shoulders, and his gown, unfastened at the top, disclosed a round, sinewy neck, ruddy and corded like the bark of the fir.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Farther on he knew he would come to where dead spruce and fir, very small and weazened, bordered the shore of a little lake, the titchin-nichilie, in the tongue of the country, the land of little sticks.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The bases of the mountains forming the gorge in which the little village lay, were richly green; and high above this gentler vegetation, grew forests of dark fir, cleaving the wintry snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the avalanche.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was a narrow winding path through a thick grove of old Scotch firs; and Catherine, struck by its gloomy aspect, and eager to enter it, could not, even by the general's disapprobation, be kept from stepping forward.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

As the evening fell it began to get very cold, and the growing twilight seemed to merge into one dark mistiness the gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine, though in the valleys which ran deep between the spurs of the hills, as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs stood out here and there against the background of late-lying snow.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)



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