furnish
/ˈfəːnɪʃ
/verb [with object]
1Provide (a house or room) with furniture and fittings: the proprietor has furnished the bedrooms in a variety of styles...
- They didn't buy any more furniture for the living room or extra bedrooms because furnishing the baby's room was the most important thing on their list.
- In furnishing the house, Rose tended to focus on one room at a time, usually using a different wood for each - ash, oak, cherry, or sycamore.
- Anticipating Emma's return at Christmas, she had begun furnishing a room of the house as a child's nursery.
Synonyms
provide with furniture, fit out, rig out, kit out, appoint, outfit, embellish, enhance
2Be a source of; provide: fish furnish an important source of protein...
- The chronology section in this volume is less detailed that the one in the Source book but furnishes enough information to allow the reader to grasp the outline of Wesley's biography.
- This ancient Middle Eastern source furnished the basis for classical Greek medical and philosophical theories of hysteria.
- But even yet the discovery of the cholera bacillus is important, as furnishing an aid in diagnosis which would facilitate the detection of the first case occurring in a district, and the adoption of measures to prevent its spread.
Synonyms
supply, equip, provide, provision, issue, kit out, fix up, grant, present;
give, offer, make available, serve, confer, afford, purvey, bestow, endow
2.1 (furnish someone with) Supply someone with (something); give (something) to someone: she was able to furnish me with details of the incident...
- Crawford furnished News Central with typewriters, telephones, teletype machines, office supplies, coffee, and soft drinks, and provided reporters with press kits, passes, and convenient darkroom facilities.
- It furnished them with elegantly prepared meals (in contrast to the work camps, which still oblige laborers to sling their own hash), and it shifted the focus from hard labor to cultural exchange.
- And, of course, it makes the obvious point that, like it or not, we have furnished Al-Quaeda with photos for their recruitment brochures for decades.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the general sense 'provide or equip with what is necessary or desirable'): from Old French furniss-, lengthened stem of furnir, ultimately of West Germanic origin.
veneer from early 18th century:
The earliest form of veneer was fineer. It came into English through German furnieren from Old French furnir ‘to furnish’, and so is related to furnish (Late Middle English) and furniture (early 16th century). The idea behind it is that of ‘furnishing’ a piece of furniture with a thin surface.