fir

/fɜː/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/fəː/

fir noun: a conifer of the genus Abies.

Image: Lestat (Jan Mehlich), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

fir (countable and uncountable, plural firs)

(countable) A conifer of the genus Abies.
- A beech wood with silver firs in it rolled down the face of the hill, and the maze of leafless twigs and dusky spires cut sharp against the soft blueness of the evening sky.1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 1, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC
(countable) Any pinaceous conifer of related genera, especially a Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga) or a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris).
- we shall find a spot that is sheltered and snug enough, sir. There is a dry fir-wood just ahead, if I remember rightly.1954, J. R. R. Tolkien, chapter 3, in The Lord of the Rings
- I can almost smell the fir scent… resinous, pungent.1991, Paul Chadwick, Concrete: American Christmas, Dark Horse Books
(uncountable) Wood of such trees.

Synonyms:

firwood

Adjective capitalized: FIR

FIR (not comparable)

(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of finite impulse response; that has impulse response (or response to any finite length input) of finite duration.

Noun (2) capitalized: FIR

FIR (countable and uncountable, plural FIRs)

(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of flight information region; a specified region of airspace in which a flight information service (FIS) and an alerting service (ALRS) are provided.
(Singapore, South-Asia, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of first information report.
(abbreviation, uncountable) Abbreviation of far infrared or far infrared radiation.

fir meaning in Tagalog, Arabic, Persian and Vietnamese

fir in Arabic

conifer of the genus Abies: شُوح šūḥ

fir in Persian

conifer of the genus Abies: نراد narâd

fir in Vietnamese

conifer of the genus Abies: linh sam

Examples of fir in a sentence

The koklas is found in the fir zone and prefers moist woody forests.
To create a light skiff of snow on a six-foot noble fir, double the recipe.
Of these terms, “big fir” used at Nan-t'ou has a historic origin.

All 27 example sentences with fir

Synonyms of fir

firwood
fir-tree

Forms of fir

plural	firs
plural	FIRs

Plural of fir: firs

Origin of fir

From Middle English firre, from Old English fyrh, furh, as in furhwudu (“pinewood”), from Proto-West Germanic *furhu, from Proto-Germanic *furhō, *furhijǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *pŕ̥kʷeh₂, from *pérkʷus (“oak”). Possibly conflated during Middle English with Old Norse fýri (as in fýriskógr (“pine-wood”). Germanic cognates include Dutch vuren, Low German Fuhr, German Föhre (“pine”), Danish fyr). Outside of Germanic, compare Italian (Trentino) porca (“fir”), Latin quercus (“oak”), Albanian shpardh, shparr (“Italian oak”), Punjabi ਪਰਗਾਇ (pargāī, “holm oak, Quercus baloot”)). Related to frith.

Words formed from fir

Algerian fir
alpine fir
amabilis fir
American silver fir
balsam fir
balsam of fir
Bhutan fir
big-cone Douglas fir)
bristlecone fir
Bulgarian fir
Cascade fir
Caucasian fir
China fir
Chinese fir
cluster fir
Colorado fir
corkbark fir
cork fir
Corsican fir
Danzig fir
Douglas fir
Douglas-fir
Doug fir
fir adelgid
firbound
fir clubmoss
fir-cone
firleaf beardtongue
firless
firlike
fir mistletoe
firmoss
firry
flaky fir
Fraser fir
giant fir
golden fir
grand fir
great silver fir
Grecian fir
Greek fir
ground fit
Guatemalan fir
hemlock fir
Himalayan fir
jointfir
joint fir
Korean fir
lovely fir
lowland fir
lowland white fir
momi fir
Moroccan fir
mountain clubmoss
mountain fir clubmoss
needle fir
Nikko fir
noble fir
Nordmann's fir
Oregon fir

Phrases with fir

7 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with fir

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about fir

What does fir mean?: Fir means a conifer of the genus Abies.
What is fir in Tagalog?: Fir in Tagalog is abeto. See Fir meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is fir?: Fir can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce fir?: Fir is pronounced /fɜː/ (UK).
What is the plural of fir?: The plural of fir is firs.

Words near fir in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: fir (page history and authors); FIR (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-fir.ogg, en-us-fir.ogg.

Cite this entry: “fir.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fir. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.