Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The thick coat of soft hair covering the skin of a mammal, such as a fox or beaver.
  • noun The hair-covered, dressed pelt of such a mammal, used in making garments and as trimming or decoration.
  • noun A garment made of or lined with the dressed pelt of a mammal.
  • noun A coating similar to the pelt of a mammal.
  • transitive verb To cover, line, or trim with fur.
  • transitive verb To provide fur garments for.
  • transitive verb To cover or coat as if with fur.
  • transitive verb To line (a wall or floor) with furring.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The short, fine, soft coat or pelage of certain animals, distinguished from the hair, which is longer and coarser, and more or less of which is generally present with it.
  • noun The skin of certain wild animals with the fur; peltry: as, a cargo of furs.
  • noun Strips of skins bearing the natural fur, made in various forms, as capes, muffs, etc., and worn for warmth or ornament: used in the singular collectively, or in the plural.
  • noun Any natural covering or material regarded as resembling fur.
  • noun Specifically— The soft down on the skin of a peach and on the leaves of some plants. More commonly called fuzz.
  • noun A coat of morbid matter formed on the tongue, as in persons affected with fever.
  • noun A coat or crust formed on the interior of a vessel by matter deposited from a liquid, as wine.
  • noun Scale formed in a boiler.
  • noun In sporting, a general term for furred animals, as in the phrase fur, fin, and feather. Compare feather, fin.
  • noun Kind or class: from the use of particular furs as distinctive insignia.
  • noun In the following passage the allusion is to the use of fur—miniver or vair—in some of the distinctive university costumes.
  • noun One of several tinctures used in heraldry.
  • Pertaining to or made of fur; producing fur: as, fur animals; a fur cap.
  • To line, face, or cover with fur: as, a furred robe.
  • To cover with morbid or foul matter; coat.
  • In carpentry, to nail strips of board nr timber to, as joists or rafters, in order to bring them to a level and range them into a straight surface, or as a wall or partition, for lathing or for forming an air-space between it and the plastering.
  • To clean off scale from the interior of (a boiler).
  • A dialectal variant of far.
  • An abbreviation of furlong.
  • noun A furrow; the space between two ridges.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To line, face, or cover with fur.
  • transitive verb To cover with morbid matter, as the tongue.
  • transitive verb (Arch.) To nail small strips of board or larger scantling upon, in order to make a level surface for lathing or boarding, or to provide for a space or interval back of the plastered or boarded surface, as inside an outer wall, by way of protection against damp.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to furs; bearing or made of fur
  • adjective (Zoöl.) one of several species of seals of the genera Callorhinus and Arclocephalus, inhabiting the North Pacific and the Antarctic oceans. They have a coat of fine and soft fur which is highly prized. The northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) breeds in vast numbers on the Prybilov Islands, off the coast of Alaska; -- called also sea bear.
  • noun The short, fine, soft hair of certain animals, growing thick on the skin, and distinguished from the hair, which is longer and coarser.
  • noun The skins of certain wild animals with the fur; peltry.
  • noun Strips of dressed skins with fur, used on garments for warmth or for ornament.
  • noun Articles of clothing made of fur.
  • noun Any coating considered as resembling fur.
  • noun A coat of morbid matter collected on the tongue in persons affected with fever.
  • noun The soft, downy covering on the skin of a peach.
  • noun The deposit formed on the interior of boilers and other vessels by hard water.
  • noun (Her.) One of several patterns or diapers used as tinctures. There are nine in all, or, according to some writers, only six.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Hairy coat of various mammal species, especially: when fine, soft and thick.
  • noun Hairy skin of an animal processed into a suitable wear to cover human nakedness, protect humans from the cold and/or be worn ornamentally.
  • noun A pelt used to make, trim or line clothing apparel.
  • noun A coating, lining resembling fur in function and/or appearance.
  • noun A furry; a member of the furry subculture.
  • verb transitive To cover with fur.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun dense coat of fine silky hairs on mammals (e.g., cat or seal or weasel)
  • noun a garment made of the dressed hairy coat of a mammal

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English furre, probably from furren, to line with fur, from Old French forrer, from forre, fuerre, sheath, lining, of Germanic origin; see pā- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English furren, from Anglo-Norman furrer ("to stuff, line, fill"), from fuerre 'sheath', from Old Low Franconian *fōder, from Proto-Germanic *fōdran 'sheath' (compare Old English foðor 'sheaf', fōdder 'sheath, case', Dutch voering ("lining"), German Futter ("lining"), Gothic 𐍆𐍉𐌳𐍂 (fōdr, "sheath")), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂-, *poh₂- 'to protect' (compare Lithuanian piemuō ("protection"), Ancient Greek pōy 'flock', pōma 'lid', ποιμήν (poimēn, "shepherd"), Old Armenian հաւրան (hawran, "herd, flock"), Kurdish pawan 'to watch over', Sanskrit पाति (pāti, "he watches, protects"), pātram 'container').

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Examples

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  • "During a discussion on fur as fashion, Lawson said: 'I feel going into a shop and buying a fur coat would be an act of weakness, but if I could go out into the woods and kill a bear myself, I would then wear it proudly as a trophy.'

    Host Adrian Chiles expressed disbelief that she would do such a thing, saying: 'you're a nice lady who makes chocolate puddings'. Lawson replied: 'If you're in nature and it's either you go or the bear goes ...' Asked if she would kill an animal to wear its fur, she backtracked but said: 'I might if I lived in Alaska.'

    ...

    Viva! (Vegetarians International Voice for Animals) deputy director Justin Kerswell said: 'Nigella should stick to making double-entendres about puddings.'"

    - 'Fur flies as TV chef says she'd kill a bear and wear it', theage.com.au, 12 Dec 2008.

    December 12, 2008

  • I don't think she's capable of killing a bear. It would be kind of pathetic to witness an encounter between a bear and Nigella Lawson.

    Speaking for bears...

    December 12, 2008

  • Well, someone has to. :-)

    December 13, 2008