wood S2 W2 /wʊd/ BrE AmE noun
[ Word Family: adjective : ↑ wooded , ↑ wooden , ↑ woody ; noun : ↑ wood , ↑ woodenness ; adverb : ↑ woodenly ]
[ Language: Old English ; Origin: wudu ]
1 . [uncountable and countable] the material that trees are made of ⇨ wooden , woody :
Put some more wood on the fire.
a polished wood floor
Her house was made of wood.
⇨ ↑ hardwood , ↑ softwood
2 . [countable] ( also the woods ) a small forest:
a walk in the woods
3 . touch wood British English , knock on wood American English said just after you have said that things are going well for you, when you want your good luck to continue
4 . [countable] one of a set of four ↑ golf club s with wooden heads
5 . not be out of the wood(s) yet informal used to say that there are likely to be more difficulties before things improve
6 . not see the wood for the trees to not notice what is important about something because you give too much of your attention to small details
⇨ ↑ dead wood
• • •
COLLOCATIONS
■ adjectives
▪ solid wood
You can install a solid wood door.
▪ bare wood (=not painted or covered)
The floors were of bare wood.
▪ a hard/soft wood
Oak is a hard wood.
■ verbs
▪ chop wood
He was chopping wood for the fire.
▪ cut/saw wood
A local carpenter cut the wood to size.
▪ carve wood (=used a knife to shape it)
The room was decorated with carved wood.
■ phrases
▪ a piece of wood
He made a bench out of pieces of wood.
▪ a plank of wood (=a long thin flat piece)
The shed was constructed from some old planks of wood.
▪ a block of wood
I used a block of wood to knock the pole into the ground.
▪ the grain of the wood (=the natural lines in it)
The oil enhances the natural grain of the wood.
■ wood + NOUN
▪ wood chips (=small rough pieces)
Fish are smoked slowly over wood chips.
▪ wood shavings (=thin curly pieces)
He cleared up the wood shavings.
▪ wood smoke
There was a smell of wood smoke.