Word of the Day

: March 10, 2008

wooden

adjective WOOD-un

What It Means

1 : made or consisting of wood

2 : lacking ease or flexibility : awkwardly stiff

wooden in Context

As the play went on, Alyssa's stage fright dissipated, and her acting became less wooden.

Did You Know?

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.