cordwood

noun

cord·​wood ˈkȯrd-ˌwu̇d How to pronounce cordwood (audio)
: wood piled or sold in cords

Examples of cordwood in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Straw bale houses fall into the same category as cordwood. John Schandelmeier, Anchorage Daily News, 28 May 2022 And the things he was made to do, lest he be shot or thrown, still living, but just barely, into the piles of corpses stacked like cordwood in streets, fields, along the fence lines of the ghettos and death camps in which he was confined. Robert Wilonsky, Dallas News, 14 Jan. 2020 After loggers felled the large trees, smaller ones became fuel for locomotives, and the eastern slopes of the Sierra are so dry that there are still stacks of cordwood left over from the eighteen-eighties. Nicola Twilley, The New Yorker, 19 Aug. 2019 The fourth and final case of success in Afghanistan concerns counterterrorism operations: those shadowy raids and drone strikes that have successfully stacked terrorist bodies like cordwood across Afghanistan and rural Pakistan. Phillip Carter, Slate Magazine, 23 Aug. 2017 The results have been poor on nearly all fronts besides counterterrorism, where the U.S. special operations and drones machine has continued to stack bodies like cordwood. Phillip Carter, Slate Magazine, 11 May 2017 Earthwood Building School Fine-tune your skills at this specialized building school that offers several courses on cordwood construction and other alternative, energy-efficient building techniques. John Loecke, ELLE Decor, 5 July 2012 Left unchecked, the airlines may remove all seats and stack passengers like cordwood, reminiscent of ship holds in the 1700s, all in the quest for better profits. Chicago Tribune, chicagotribune.com, 8 May 2017 The young pitching arms of the Mets — a Harvey, a Syndergaard, a de Grom and a Matz — are piled high as cordwood. Michael Powell, New York Times, 16 Feb. 2016

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cordwood.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1639, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of cordwood was circa 1639

Dictionary Entries Near cordwood

Cite this Entry

“Cordwood.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cordwood. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

cordwood

noun
cord·​wood ˈkȯ(ə)r-ˌdwu̇d How to pronounce cordwood (audio)
: wood piled or sold in cords

More from Merriam-Webster on cordwood

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