furniture

American  

[fur-ni-cher] / ˈfɜr nɪ tʃər /

noun

1. the movable articles, as tables, chairs, desks or cabinets, required for use or ornament in a house, office, or the like.

2. fittings, apparatus, or necessary accessories for something.

3. equipment for streets and other public areas, as lighting standards, signs, benches, or litter bins.

4. Also called bearer.  Also called dead metal.  Printing. pieces of wood or metal, less than type high, set in and about pages of type to fill them out and hold the type in place in a chase.

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furniture British  

/ ˈfɜːnɪtʃə /

noun

1. the movable, generally functional, articles that equip a room, house, etc

2. the equipment necessary for a ship, factory, etc

3. printing lengths of wood, plastic, or metal, used in assembling formes to create the blank areas and to surround the type

4. the wooden parts of a rifle

5. obsolete the full armour, trappings, etc, for a man and horse

6. the attitudes or characteristics that are typical of a person or thing

   the furniture of the murderer's mind

7. informal someone or something that is so long established in an environment as to be accepted as an integral part of it

   he has been here so long that he is part of the furniture

8. See door furniture street furniture

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Other Word Forms

• furnitureless
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of furniture

1520–30; < French fourniture, derivative of fournir to furnish

Explanation

The chairs, tables, sofas, and beds in your house are furniture. Your furniture gives you somewhere to sit, store your books, and a comfortable place to sleep at night. Furniture can be defined as the things in your house that you can move around — you can rearrange the furniture in your living room to make room for a piano, for example. Humans have been building and using some form of furniture for thousands of years. Furniture comes from the Middle French fourniture, "a supply," or "an act of furnishing."

Example Sentences

Last year, PayPal teamed up with AI company Perplexity so people could use its service to purchase products from retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch and Ashley Furniture within Perplexity’s chat interface.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 3, 2026

Consumer stocks Once Upon a Farm and Bob’s Discount Furniture have slid following promising starts.

From Barron's • Mar. 20, 2026

Meganne Wecker, CEO of Illinois-based Skyline Furniture Mfg., said one unusual indicator suggests the spark might have ignited already.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 23, 2026

Furniture store sales fell 0.9% month-over-month, while sales at clothing retailers declined 0.7%.

From BBC • Feb. 10, 2026

Furniture was brought in and arranged, floral decorations set out.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

Related Words

• appliance
• bed
• bookcase
• chair
• couch
• desk
• equipment
• goods
• sofa
• table