firyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
fir: [14] As with many Indo-European tree-names, fir is a widespread term, but it does not mean the same thing wherever it occurs. Its prehistoric Indo-European ancestor was *perkos, which in Latin became quercus, the name for the ‘oak’. Nor was the application confined to southern Europe, for Swiss German has a related ferch ‘oak wood’. But by and large, the Germanic languages took the term over and applied it to the ‘pine’: German föhre, Swedish fura, and Danish fyr all mean ‘pine’.

So also did Old English furh (known only in the compound furhwudu ‘pinewood’), but this appears to have died out. It was replaced semantically by pine, but formally by Middle English firre, a borrowing from the Old Norse form fyri- (also known only in compounds). This was used as a name not for the ‘pine’, but for the ‘fir’ (which in Old English times had been called sæppe or gyr).

cud (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English cudu "cud," earlier cwudu, common Germanic (compare Old Norse kvaða "resin," Old High German quiti "glue," German Kitt "putty"); perhaps from PIE root *gwet- "resin, gum."
fir (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
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.

According 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]
forest (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
late 13c., "extensive tree-covered district," especially one set aside for royal hunting and under the protection of the king, from Old French forest "forest, wood, woodland" (Modern French forêt), probably ultimately from Late Latin/Medieval Latin forestem silvam "the outside woods," a term from the Capitularies of Charlemagne denoting "the royal forest." This word comes to Medieval Latin, perhaps via a Germanic source akin to Old High German forst, from Latin foris "outside" (see foreign). If so, the sense is "beyond the park," the park (Latin parcus; see park (n.)) being the main or central fenced woodland.

Another theory traces it through Medieval Latin forestis, originally "forest preserve, game preserve," from Latin forum in legal sense "court, judgment;" in other words "land subject to a ban" [Buck]. Replaced Old English wudu (see wood (n.)). Spanish and Portuguese floresta have been influenced by flor "flower."
phoenix (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English and Old French fenix, from Medieval Latin phenix, from Latin phoenix, from Greek phoinix, mythical bird of Arabia which flew to Egypt every 500 years to be reborn, also "the date" (fruit and tree), also "Phoenician," literally "purple-red," perhaps a foreign word (Egyptian has been suggested), or from phoinos "blood-red." Exact relation and order of the senses in Greek is unclear.
Ðone wudu weardaþ wundrum fæger
fugel feþrum se is fenix hatan

["Phoenix," c.900]
Spelling assimilated to Greek 16c. (see ph). Figurative sense of "that which rises from the ashes of what was destroyed" is attested from 1590s. The city in Arizona, U.S., so called because it was founded in 1867 on the site of an ancient Native American settlement.
Wednesday (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
fourth day of the week, Old English wodnesdæg "Woden's day," a Germanic loan-translation of Latin dies Mercurii "day of Mercury" (compare Old Norse Oðinsdagr, Swedish Onsdag, Old Frisian Wonsdei, Middle Dutch Wudensdach). For Woden, see Odin.

Contracted pronunciation is recorded from 15c. The Odin-based name is missing in German (mittwoch, from Old High German mittwocha, literally "mid-week"), probably by influence of Gothic, which seems to have adopted a pure ecclesiastical (i.e. non-astrological) week from Greek missionaries. The Gothic model also seems to be the source of Polish środa, Russian sreda "Wednesday," literally "middle."
widow (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English widewe, wuduwe, from Proto-Germanic *widuwo (cognates: Old Saxon widowa, Old Frisian widwe, Middle Dutch, Dutch weduwe, Dutch weeuw, Old High German wituwa, German Witwe, Gothic widuwo), from PIE adjective *widhewo (cognates: Sanskrit vidhuh "lonely, solitary," vidhava "widow;" Avestan vithava, Latin vidua, Old Church Slavonic vidova, Russian vdova, Old Irish fedb, Welsh guedeu "widow;" Persian beva, Greek eitheos "unmarried man;" Latin viduus "bereft, void"), from root *weidh- "to separate" (source of second element in Latin di-videre "to divide;" see with).

Extended to "woman separated from or deserted by her husband" from mid-15c. (usually in a combination, such as grass widow). As a prefix to a name, attested from 1570s. Meaning "short line of type" (especially at the top of a column) is 1904 print shop slang. Widow's mite is from Mark xii:43. Widow's peak is from the belief that hair growing to a point on the forehead is an omen of early widowhood, suggestive of the "peak" of a widow's hood. The widow bird (1747) so-called in reference to the long black tail feathers of the males, suggestive of widows' veils.
widowhood (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
c. 1200, from widow (n.) + -hood. Modifying or replacing Old English wuduwanhad "state of a woman who has no husband."
wood (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English wudu, earlier widu "tree, trees collectively, forest, grove; the substance of which trees are made," from Proto-Germanic *widu- (cognates: Old Norse viðr, Danish and Swedish ved "tree, wood," Old High German witu "wood"), from PIE *widhu- "tree, wood" (cognates: Welsh gwydd "trees," Gaelic fiodh- "wood, timber," Old Irish fid "tree, wood"). Out of the woods "safe" is from 1792.
woodbine (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English wudubinde, a climbing plant, from wudu "wood" (see wood (n.)) + binde "wreath," related to bind (v.). Used of various climbing plants on three continents.
woodcock (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English wuducoc, from wudu (see wood (n.)) + coc (see cock (n.1)).
woodland (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English wudulond; see wood (n.) + land (n.). As an adjective from mid-14c.
woody (adj.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
late 14c., "overgrown with trees and shrubs," from wood (n.) + -y (2). Of plants, "having a stem of wood," from 1570s. Related: Woodiness. Old English had wudulic. As a name for a kind of station wagon with wood panels, by 1961, U.S. surfer slang (real wood exterior panels were rare after 1951 and the last use of real wood was in the 1953 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon). Slang meaning "erection" attested by 1990 (for hardness).