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Humans have been making objects out of wood since before there even was an English language, but the adjectival use of "wood" didn't come into being until the 14th century, and "wooden" didn't appear until the 16th. (The word wood has ancient roots, but it originally existed only as a noun.) In Middle English, the adjective of choice was "tree" or "treen," as in a "tree vessel" or "treen shoes." "Treen" in turn came from the Old English word trēowen, from the noun "trēow" ("tree") and the suffix -en, which was used to indicate that something was composed of a certain material. As far as we know, no one ever used "treen" figuratively to describe things that are stiff as a board, but "wooden" was put to broader use soon after it was first recorded.
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Examples of wooden in a Sentence
Mitch Smith, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2025
Meanwhile, the wooden bleachers inside the antiquated stadium were covered by 84,059 seat cushions with an Apple logo, a marketing decision that Steve Jobs personally approved when approached by an NFL executive.
—Mark Purdy, The Mercury News, 24 Jan. 2025
According to Cape Coral police, the man, John Hennessey, 27, dropped the knife and then swung a wooden stick at officers after burning himself in the fire on the front yard of a home on the afternoon of June 2018.
—Howard Cohen, Miami Herald, 24 Jan. 2025
Bake cake: Bake in preheated oven until a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes.
—Tricia Manzanero Stuedeman, Southern Living, 23 Jan. 2025
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Dictionary Entries Near wooden
Cite this Entry
“Wooden.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wooden. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
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