Furniture Definition & Meaning

American

British

Other Word Forms

Etymology

Examples

Related Words

Synonyms furniture American [fur-ni-cher] / ˈfɜr nɪ tʃər /

noun

1. the movable articles, as tables, chairs, desks or cabinets, required for use or ornament in a house, office, or the like.

2. fittings, apparatus, or necessary accessories for something.

3. equipment for streets and other public areas, as lighting standards, signs, benches, or litter bins.

4. Also called bearer. Also called dead metal. Printing. pieces of wood or metal, less than type high, set in and about pages of type to fill them out and hold the type in place in a chase.

furniture British / ˈfɜːnɪtʃə /

noun

1. the movable, generally functional, articles that equip a room, house, etc

2. the equipment necessary for a ship, factory, etc

3. printing lengths of wood, plastic, or metal, used in assembling formes to create the blank areas and to surround the type

4. the wooden parts of a rifle

5. obsolete the full armour, trappings, etc, for a man and horse

6. the attitudes or characteristics that are typical of a person or thing

   the furniture of the murderer's mind

7. informal someone or something that is so long established in an environment as to be accepted as an integral part of it

   he has been here so long that he is part of the furniture

8. See door furniture street furniture

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

• furnitureless adjective

Etymology

Origin of furniture

1520–30; < French fourniture, derivative of fournir to furnish

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Ordinarily used as a community center, it was already outfitted with furniture and toys.

From The Wall Street Journal

Over the years, many of these chairs found their way into homes, estate sales, old furniture shops or private collections, from where the curators sourced them, Gandhi says.

From BBC

"Because there was a lot of us still there, we started to lift furniture, fridges up into the kitchen area, thinking about the electricals," Shull said.

From BBC

Higher energy prices threaten bigger household bills for everything from gas and electricity to food and furniture shipped from overseas.

From BBC

The walls and furniture appeared riddled with tiny marks.

From Barron's

Related Words

• appliance
• bed
• bookcase
• chair
• couch
• desk
• equipment
• goods
• sofa
• table

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.