# firewood: terms not based on "fire" + "wood"



## Gavril

Hello,

It seems relatively common in European languages for the word for "firewood" to be composed of terms meaning "fire"/"burning" and "wood".

For example,

English _firewood_
Finnish _polttopuut_ < _poltto_ "burning" + _puut_ "trees"/"wood"
German _Brennholz_ < _brenn-_ "burn" + _Holz_ "wood"

Do you know of any words for "firewood" that are *not* composed of these elements, or at least not both of them?


So far, I have found the following examples:

- Spanish _leña_ < Latin _ligna_ "logs" (although Sp. _leño_ means "log", the compound "fire wood" would literally be _madera (de) fuego, madera de quemar_ or similar)
- Welsh _tanwent_ < _tân_ "fire" + an obscure suffix (or root) _-went_
- Japanese 薪 (_maki_ or _takigi_); not sure about the etymology -- both words may contain the root _ki_ "tree" but they don't seem to contain _hi_ "fire"


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## arielipi

Hebrew:
אח akh is a fireplace. no connection to woods or fire.


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## ger4

Latvian: malka, apparently unrelated to the nouns "fire" (uguns), "wood" (koksne) and the (trans.) verbs "to burn" (dedzināt/degt), "to heat" (kurināt) and "to make a fire" (kurt).


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## rur1920

Russian: дрова (lit. ~ woods, this noun is plural). It seems to be somehow related to дерево, tree, but I don't know in which way. For example, Max Vasmer says that Czech drvo, tree, is a cognate of дрова. One instance in the pack is called полено, the word is loosely connected with пылать, to be on fire.


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## ger4

Lithuanian (relying on dictionary entries): malkos; compare the nouns "fire" (ugnis) and "wood" (mediena) and the (transitive) verbs "to burn" (deginti) and "to heat" (kūrenti).
(Estonian, unlike Latvian and Lithuanian, has a compound word: küttepuud <-- heating [kütte-] + wood [puu] + nominative plural [-d])


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## apmoy70

In Greek, wood is *«ξύλο»* [ˈksilo] (neut.); its plural form *«ξύλα»* [ˈksila] (neut.) often means firewood. 
If we want to be more specific, then we use the compound *«καυσόξυλα»* [kafˈsoksila] (neut. nom. pl.) --> _heating-wood_*s* < MoGr construction (1843); Classical masc. noun *«καῦσος» kaũsŏs*--> _burning heat_ (PIE *keh₂u-, _to burn_ cf Latv. kūla, _old, dry, grass of last year_) + Classical neuter noun *«ξύλον» ksúlŏn* --> _wood, timber, firewood, tree, beam, stick_ (with obscure etymology; Beekes suggests a non-IE substrate word, although its resemblance to the Lith. šulas, _lag, pole, pillar_ is quite interesting)


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## rur1920

apmoy70 said:


> If we want to be more specific, then we use the compound *«καυσόξυλα»* [kafˈsoksila] (neut. nom. pl.) --> _heating-wood_*s* < MoGr construction (1843)


In Russian, no such precision is required. The word дрова, no matter its woodlike origin (which may be vaguely felt without looking into a dictionary, but is not considered when you don't think of etymology), already means that this is wood for heating the place. The same with полено, both on the point of how its origin is perceived and on the point that normally the purpose of the activity is included into the meaning of the word, it is not normally used when other purposes are intended, as far as I know. "To make the place warm" is "топить" (this verb is connected with the adjective тёплый, warm), and the activity itself is called отопление, which has come to be a rather formal word. "Дрова для отопления" is stylistically weird, but "дрова, чтобы печку топить" (firewood to heat the furnace), though redundant, is absolutely okay, because it uses concrete, by which I mean visible, sensible and directly evaluable via senses, including the "internal sense" of the mind, terms.


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## Grefsen

Gavril said:


> Do you know of any words for "firewood" that are *not* composed of these elements, or at least not both of them?


Norwegian:

*ved - *firewood



arielipi said:


> Hebrew:





arielipi said:


> אח akh is a fireplace. no connection to woods or fire.


Norwegian:

*peis -* fireplace


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## Outsider

Portuguese is like Spanish: firewood = _lenha_, not a compound of "fire" (_fogo_) and "wood" (_madeira_).


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## Gavril

Grefsen said:


> Norwegian:
> 
> *ved - *firewood



Is_ ved_ used for the meaning "wood" in other contexts? Google Translate suggests that _tre_ is the default word for "wood" in Norwegian, but perhaps this is misleading.

There seems to be a pattern in some languages where the word for "firewood" is an older, now rare/obsolete word for "wood"/"tree"/etc.


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## M Mira

Chinese:
柴 - phono-semantic compound, 木 "wood" semantic radical, 此 "this" phonetic component.
薪 - phono-semantic compound, 艸 "grass" semantic radical, 新 "new" phonetic component.
No visible etymological relationship with wood nor fire.


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## cherine

In Arabic, it's HaTab حَطَب . Not related to neither fire (naar) نار nor wood (khashab) خشب.


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## ThomasK

I am thinking of *'sprokkelhout' *in Dutch. 'Sprokkelen' is an iterative verb (-elen) referring to the act of collecting small - and maybe 'less small' - pieces of wood in the forest: to gather dead wood (_hout_)...  But I cannot think of other things not containing 'wood'...


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## arielipi

Oh, by the way, I now noticed its about firewood and not fireplace, so hebrew for firewood can be:
general material for use of burning is חומר הסקה khomer (=material) hasaka (=to radiate/heat, also used for conclusion/concluding/deduction in other contexts)
basically the material can change but it has to be followed with hasaka,
עצי הסקה etzey hasaka firewood
פחמי הסקה pekhamey hasaka 'fire'coal

and so on.


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## Grefsen

Gavril said:


> Is_ ved_ used for the meaning "wood" in other contexts?


Yes, here are some examples:

*vedovn -* woodstove (wood burning stove)

*vedkubbe -* wooden log (log of firewood)

*bjørkeved - *birchwood



Gavril said:


> Google Translate suggests that _tre_ is the default word for "wood" in Norwegian, but perhaps this is misleading.


Yes, _tre_ is used to mean "wood" (from a tree) in Norwegian.  

One way to write "The house is made of wood" in Norwegian is:

Huset er bygd av tre.

Depending on the context _tre_ can also be used to mean "tree," "three," and "step."


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## Outsider

Gavril said:


> - Spanish _leña_ < Latin _ligna_ "logs" (although Sp. _leño_ means "log", the compound "fire wood" would literally be _madera (de) fuego, madera de quemar_ or similar)


Just an observation: according to this dictionary, Latin _lignum_, the singular of _ligna_, means "wood, timber, especially firewood". As far as I can tell, the meaning remained the same in Spanish and Portuguese, except that the modern words _leña_/_lenha_ derive from the Latin plural. 
I think the switch from singular to plural may be related to the fact that the underlying concept of "wood" or "timber" is collective (or uncountable?), and possibly also to the fact that L. _lignum_ was of neuter gender.


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## origumi

arielipi said:


> Hebrew:
> אח akh is a fireplace. no connection to woods or fire.


This biblical word is said to be borrowed from a foreign language (Egyptian), which explains its remoteness from fire, wood, and alike.


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## Encolpius

*Hungarian*: tűzifa [tűz fire + -i to form adjective + fa wood]


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## Gavril

Hi Encolpius,



Encolpius said:


> *Hungarian*: tűzifa [tűz wood + -i to form adjective + fa wood]



You defined _tűz_ as "wood" above -- did you mean to say "fire" instead? (That is what tűz means according to Google Translate.)


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## ger4

Gavril said:


> [...]There seems to be a pattern in some languages where the word for "firewood" is an older, now rare/obsolete word for "wood"/"tree"/etc.


Apparently, Latvian and Lithuanian [1] _malka_ ("firewood") have the same etymological origin as Estonian _malk_, "rod" and Finnish _malka_, "beam" (though according to both Wiktionary and Google Translate a more frequently used word in Finnish seems to be _palkki_). In Prussian, the word _malko_ meant "wood"[2]:


> http://www.eki.ee/dict/ety/index.cgi?Q=malk&F=M&C06=et
> *malk *N *: malga *G* : malka *P  'pikem kepikujuline löömisvahend, peenem kaigas, ritv' 'rod'
> ← balti
> leedu Lithuanian _malka_ '[...], küttepuud, [...] 'firewood' (plural) < kütte- (heating) + puu (wood) + -d (plural marker)
> läti Latvian _malka_ 'küttepuu' 'firewood' (singular)
> preisi Prussian _malko_ 'puud' 'wood' (plural)
> soome Finnish _malka_ 'katusemalk; palk' 'beam; log'


[1] in Lithuanian, the plural form _malkos_ seems to be more frequently used (not sure, though, as I don't speak Lithuanian)
[2] then again, http://donelaitis.vdu.lt/prussian/M.htm translates it into German as _Brennholz_, "firewood"


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## SteveD

I'm surprised nobody seems to have mentiond the English word *kindling*.


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## Gavril

SteveD said:


> I'm surprised nobody seems to have mentiond the English word *kindling*.



I think of kindling as a subtype of firewood (because you use  kindling to start a fire, but not afterwards) rather than a synonym of _firewood _itself, but thanks for bringing this up.

Terms for kindling often seem to be related to a verb meaning "kindle, start a fire":

English *kindling *< _kindle_
Finnish *sytyke *< _syttyä_ "to catch fire, be ignited"
German *Anzündholz *< _anzünd_- "to ignite" + _Holz_ "wood"

In some other cases, the word for kindling seems to refer to a type of wood that's normally used for it:

Spanish *astillas *"kindling", but also "splinters, wood chips"
Slovene *trska *"kindling" / "splinter, wood chip", *iver *"kindling" / "splinter"


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## apmoy70

Gavril said:


> I think of kindling as a subtype of firewood (because you use  kindling to start a fire, but not afterwards) rather than a synonym of _firewood _itself, but thanks for bringing this up.
> 
> Terms for kindling often seem to be related to a verb meaning "kindle, start a fire":
> 
> English *kindling *< _kindle_
> Finnish *sytyke *< _syttyä_ "to catch fire, be ignited"
> German *Anzündholz *< _anzünd_- "to ignite" + _Holz_ "wood"
> 
> In some other cases, the word for kindling seems to refer to a type of wood that's normally used for it:
> 
> Spanish *astillas *"kindling", but also "splinters, wood chips"
> Slovene *trska *"kindling" / "splinter, wood chip", *iver *"kindling" / "splinter"


Greek *«προσάναμμα»* [pɾoˈsanama] (neut.) --> _kindling_ < compound; Classical adverb, preposition, and prefix *«πρός» prós* --> _furthermore, thereto, from, by, at, to, towards, in face of_ (PIE *proti-, _against_ cf Skt. प्रति (prati), _about, to; _Lat. pretium, _worth, price, prize_; Proto-Slavic *pretivъ > BCS против/protiv, Rus. против) + Byz. neut. noun *«ἄναμμα» ánamma* --> _firelighter_ < Classical v. *«ἀνάπτω» ănáptō* --> lit. _to make fast on_ or _to, fasten upon, attach_, metaph. _to light up, inflame_ (compound; Classical preposition & prefix *«ἀνά» āná* --> _up, along_ (PIE *h₂en-, _up, on high_ cf Proto-Germanic *ana > Ger. an, Eng. on, Dt. aan, Isl. á, Swe. å, på, D./Nor. Bokmål på, Nor. Nynorsk å) + Classical v. *«ἅπτω» hā́ptō* --> _to join, attach, grasp_ (PIE *h₂ep-, _to join, fit_ cf Skt. आप्त (āpta), _to grasp_; Hit. ḫapp-, _to join_; Lat. apere, _to fasten, attach_)).

Colloquially we use *«δαδί»* [ðaˈði] (neut.) --> _the resin-impregnated heartwood of pine tree used for kindling_ < Byz. neut. diminutive *«δᾳδίν» da̜dín*, of Classical 3rd declension fem. noun *«δᾴς» dá̜s* --> _torch_ < Classical v. *«δαίω» daíō* --> _to kindle_ (PIE *deh₂u-, _to burn_ cf Skt. दुनोति (dunoti), _to burn_).


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## SteveD

Continuing to move further away from burning relatively large pieces of wood, there is also another English word: *tinder*.


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## Encolpius

Gavril said:


> ...Terms for kindling often seem to be related to a verb meaning "kindle, start a fire": ...



the same in *Hungarian*: *gyújtós *[gyújt to start fire + -ós substantival suffix]


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## marco_2

In Polish the firewood we collect in the forest to make a bonfire we call *chrust *- there are similar words in other Slavic languages, but they have different meaning: Russian:_ хворост_ (probably the same meaning), _хворостина _(long dry branch),  Bulgarian: _храст _(bush), BCS _chrast _(oak tree) etc. According to Brückner, there was a verb _chwarstać / chwarszczeć _in Polish which meant _to rustle, to crackle._


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## SuperXW

M Mira said:


> Chinese:
> 柴 - phono-semantic compound, 木 "wood" semantic radical, 此 "this" phonetic component.
> 薪 - phono-semantic compound, 艸 "grass" semantic radical, 新 "new" phonetic component.
> No visible etymological relationship with wood nor fire.


Even so, the spoken word 柴火 does include both "wood" part and "fire" part.


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## 810senior

焚き木 _takigi _is similar to English compound word _firewood
takigi = taki(kindling, burning, firing) + gi(tree, wood) lit. kindling wood
_
I'm not sure what the etymology of _maki _is.


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## Encolpius

810senior, and what is maki?


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## 810senior

Maki is almost equivalent to takigi meaning firewood.

As for their difference, _takigi _is commonly used as the fired-wood, *something kindling*; otherwise, _maki _hasn't meaning such as kindling.
It can only used for *wood for fuel*(NOT wood being kindled), equivalent to firewood.


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