verb
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to provide (a house, room, etc) with furniture, carpets, etc
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to equip with what is necessary; fit out
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to give; supply
the records furnished the information required
Related Words
Furnish, appoint, equip all refer to providing something necessary. Furnish emphasizes the idea of providing necessary or customary services or appliances in living quarters: to furnish board; a room meagerly furnished with a bed, desk, and a wooden chair. Appoint, a more formal word now usually used in the past participle appointed, means to furnish completely with all requisites or accessories or in an elegant style: a well-appointed house. Equip means to supply with necessary materials or apparatus for some service, action, or undertaking; it emphasizes preparation: to equip a vessel, a soldier.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of furnish
1400–50; late Middle English furnisshen, from Old French furniss-, long stem of furnir “to accomplish, furnish,” from Germanic; compare Old High German frumjan “to provide”
Explanation
If you provide something needed, you furnish it. You can furnish an answer to a question in an interview, furnish the snacks at a party, or furnish a room by filling it with couches and chairs. Just as furniture fills a room or a building, to furnish is to fill a need. Another word for furnish is "provide." A furnace furnishes heat (try saying that ten times fast). A job furnishes you with an income. Your parents furnish you with a place to live, furniture included.
Vocabulary lists containing furnish
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
We build a little set and furnish it and decorate it.
From Los Angeles Times • May 19, 2026
Alison-Madueke denied it was to furnish a house she was having built in Nigeria, saying most of the items were not for her.
From BBC • Apr. 28, 2026
To replace the revenue, Merck has been pursuing multibillion-dollar acquisitions of biotechnology companies that promise to furnish new drugs such as Winrevair.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 23, 2026
Mr. Hernandez recalled the example of his mother, diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer—the kind of condition that would furnish a rationale in this bill’s understanding.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 12, 2025
“It seems to me you all could furnish me with a driver for the carriage once a week. It’s little enough I ask, Lord knows.”
From "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
