furniture

Etymology

From Middle French fourniture (“a supply, or the act of furnishing”), from fournir (“to furnish”).

noun

1. (now usually uncountable) Large movable item(s), usually in a room, which enhance(s) the room's characteristics, functionally or decoratively.
   The woman does not even have one stick of furniture moved in yet.
   How much furniture did they leave behind?
   A chair is furniture. Sofas are also furniture.
   They bought a couple of pieces of furniture.
   Your furniture is beautiful.
   She mixed furniture with the same fatal profligacy as she mixed drinks, and this outrageous contact between things which were intended by Nature to be kept poles apart gave her an inexpressible thrill. 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 1, in Death on the Centre Court
   The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century,[…]. 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess
2. The harness, trappings etc. of a horse, hawk, or other animal.
   Amongst the rich this part of a hawk's furniture is ornamented with embroidery, handsome silver aigrettes, tassels and other decorations. 1934, George Cameron Stone, A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor
   Horse furniture included a white sheepskin with red ‘wolf's teeth’; blue shabraque with yellow edging and royal cypher; blue valise with yellow edging. 2002, Ronald Pawly, Wellington's Dutch Allies 1815, page 19
3. Fittings, such as handles, of a door, coffin, or other wooden item.
   […]a new universal pistol, one to be carried by each man, with a 9-inch barrel of musket-bore and an iron ramrod carried in the holster; the furniture was reduced to just a brass trigger guard (no butt-plate), and some were fitted with Nock's lock. 1994, Philip Haythornthwaite, British Cavalryman 1792-1815, page 30
4. (obsolete) An accompanying enhancing feature, or features collectively; embellishment, decoration, trimming.
5. (firearms) The stock and forearm of a weapon.
6. (printing, historical) The pieces of wood or metal put round pages of type to make proper margins and fill the spaces between the pages and the chase.
7. (journalism) Any material on the page other than the body text and pictures of articles; for example, headlines, datelines and dinkuses, lines and symbols (though in earlier use, only non-text elements of page design, such as lines and symbols).
   It read: “This article was amended on 3 January 2023. The original furniture said the fireworks display was on Christmas Eve.” 31 January 2023, Elisabeth Ribbans, “The perils of using journalist jargon outside the newsroom”, in The Guardian
8. (music) A type of mixture organ stop.
9. (archaic) Draped coverings and hangings; bedsheets, tablecloths, tapestries, etc.
10. (obsolete) Clothing with which a person is furnished; apparel, outfit.
11. (obsolete) Arms and armor, equipment of war.
12. (archaic) Equipment for work, apparatus, tools, instruments.
13. (obsolete, in the plural) Condiments of a salad.
14. (obsolete) Stock, supply, stores, provisions.
15. (obsolete) Contents; that with which something is filled or stocked.
16. (bookselling) Impressive-looking books used for filling out the collection of a private library.
17. (obsolete) The action of furnishing or supplying.
18. (obsolete) The condition of being equipped, prepared, or mentally cultivated.