What is "fir"

Pine \Pine\, n. [AS. p[=i]n, L. pinus.]

1. (Bot.) Any tree of the coniferous genus Pinus. See Pinus.

   Note: There are about twenty-eight species in the United States, of which the white pine ( Pinus Strobus), the Georgia pine ( Pinus australis), the red pine ( Pinus resinosa), and the great West Coast sugar pine ( Pinus Lambertiana) are among the most valuable. The Scotch pine or fir, also called Norway or Riga pine ( Pinus sylvestris), is the only British species. The nut pine is any pine tree, or species of pine, which bears large edible seeds. See Pinon. [1913 Webster] The spruces, firs, larches, and true cedars, though formerly considered pines, are now commonly assigned to other genera.

2. The wood of the pine tree.

3. A pineapple. Ground pine. (Bot.) See under Ground. Norfolk Island pine (Bot.), a beautiful coniferous tree, the Araucaria excelsa. Pine barren, a tract of infertile land which is covered with pines. [Southern U.S.] Pine borer (Zo["o]l.), any beetle whose larv[ae] bore into pine trees. Pine finch. (Zo["o]l.) See Pinefinch, in the Vocabulary. Pine grosbeak (Zo["o]l.), a large grosbeak ( Pinicola enucleator), which inhabits the northern parts of both hemispheres. The adult male is more or less tinged with red. Pine lizard (Zo["o]l.), a small, very active, mottled gray lizard ( Sceloporus undulatus), native of the Middle States; -- called also swift, brown scorpion, and alligator. Pine marten. (Zo["o]l.)

   1. A European weasel ( Mustela martes), called also sweet marten, and yellow-breasted marten.

   2. The American sable. See Sable.

      Pine moth (Zo["o]l.), any one of several species of small tortricid moths of the genus Retinia, whose larv[ae] burrow in the ends of the branchlets of pine trees, often doing great damage.

      Pine mouse (Zo["o]l.), an American wild mouse ( Arvicola pinetorum), native of the Middle States. It lives in pine forests.

      Pine needle (Bot.), one of the slender needle-shaped leaves of a pine tree. See Pinus.

      Pine-needle wool. See Pine wool (below).

      Pine oil, an oil resembling turpentine, obtained from fir and pine trees, and used in making varnishes and colors.

      Pine snake (Zo["o]l.), a large harmless North American snake ( Pituophis melanoleucus). It is whitish, covered with brown blotches having black margins. Called also bull snake. The Western pine snake ( Pituophis Sayi) is chestnut-brown, mottled with black and orange.

      Pine tree (Bot.), a tree of the genus Pinus; pine.

      Pine-tree money, money coined in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century, and so called from its bearing a figure of a pine tree. The most noted variety is the pine tree shilling.

      Pine weevil (Zo["o]l.), any one of numerous species of weevils whose larv[ae] bore in the wood of pine trees. Several species are known in both Europe and America, belonging to the genera Pissodes, Hylobius, etc.

      Pine wool, a fiber obtained from pine needles by steaming them. It is prepared on a large scale in some of the Southern United States, and has many uses in the economic arts; -- called also pine-needle wool, and pine-wood wool.

late 14c., from Old Norse fyri- "fir" or Old Danish fyr, both from Proto-Germanic *furkhon (cognates: Old High German foraha, German Föhre "fir"), from PIE root *perkwu-, originally meaning "oak," also "oak forest," but never "wood" (cognates: Sanskrit paraktah "the holy fig tree," Hindi pargai "the evergreen oak," Latin quercus "oak," Lombardic fereha "a kind of oak"). Old English had a cognate form in furhwudu "pine wood" (only in glosses, for Latin pinus), but the modern English word is more likely from Scandinavian and in Middle English fyrre glosses Latin abies "fir," which is of obscure origin.\n

\nAccording to Indo-Europeanists Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, "The semantics of the term clearly points to a connection between 'oak' and mountainous regions, which is the basis for the ancient European term applied to forested mountains" (such as Gothic fairgunni "mountainous region," Old English firgen "mountain forest," Middle High German Virgunt "mountain forest; Sudetes"). In the period 3300 B.C.E. to 400 B.C.E., conifers and birches gradually displaced oaks in northern European forests. "Hence it is no surprise that in the early history of the Germanic languages the ancient term for mountain oak and oak forest shifts to denote conifers and coniferous forests." [Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, Vjaceslav V. Ivanov, "Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans," Berlin, 1994]

n. 1 (context chiefly countable British English) Any conifer of a variety of genera, especially a Scots pine, ''Pinus sylvestris'' or a (vern: true fir) (''Abies''). 2 (context chiefly countable US English) A conifer of the genus ''Abies''. 3 (context uncountable English) Wood of such trees.

1. n. nonresinous wood of a fir tree

2. any of various evergreen trees of the genus Abies; chiefly of upland areas [syn: fir tree, true fir]

FIR or fir may refer to:

• Fir, a type of conifer tree
• USCGC Fir, either of two buoy tenders of the United States Coast Guard
• Fir (mathematics), free ideal ring (a mathematical concept)