furnish

From Middle English furnysshen, from Old French furniss-, stem of certain parts of furnir, fornir (Modern French fournir), from Germanic, from Frankish *frumjan (“to complete, execute”), from Proto-Germanic *frumjaną (“to further, promote”), from Proto-Indo-European *promo- (“front, forward”). Cognate with Old High German frumjan (“to perform, provide”), Old High German fruma (“utility, gain”), Old English fremu (“profit, advantage”), Old English fremian (“to promote, perform”). More at frame, frim.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɝnɪʃ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɜːnɪʃ/

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• Hyphenation: fur‧nish

furnish (plural furnishes)

1. Material used to create an engineered product.
   • 2003, Martin E. Rogers, Timothy E. Long, Synthetic Methods in Step-growth Polymers, Wiley-IEEE, page 257

     The resin-coated furnish is evenly spread inside the form and another metal plate is placed on top.

furnish (third-person singular simple present furnishes, present participle furnishing, simple past and past participle furnished)

1. (transitive) To provide a place with furniture, or other equipment.
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity:

     The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on an afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.

   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., 55 Fifth Avenue, [1933], OCLC 2666860, page 0091:

     Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully furnished, and was very clean. ¶ There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

2. (transitive, figuratively) To supply or give (something).
   • (Can we date this quote?) Thomas Macaulay

     His writings and his life furnish abundant proofs that he was not a man of strong sense.

   • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Modern Library Edition (1995), p.119:

     […] he took his seat at the bottom of the table, by her ladyship's desire, and looked as if he felt that life could furnish nothing greater.

3. (transitive, figuratively) To supply (somebody) with something.
   • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard

     Mrs. Irons rebelled in her bed, and refused peremptorily to get up again, to furnish the musical topers with rum and lemons […]

• furniture

• furnish in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• furnish in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• “furnish” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.

From Old French fornais (compare Irish foirnéis, Scottish Gaelic fòirneis), from Latin fornāx.

furnish m (genitive singular furnish, plural furnishyn)

1. furnace

• “2 foirnéis” in Dictionary of the Irish Language, Royal Irish Academy, 1913–76.