Wood Is Mostly Made of Air and Water
Wood is the hard material of tree trunks. Its strength comes from a fibre-and-glue structure.
Wood is the hard fibrous material forming the trunk and branches of trees. It is a natural composite: cellulose fibres run lengthwise for tensile strength, held in lignin, a rigid glue that resists compression — the same principle as steel reinforcement in concrete, arrived at hundreds of millions of years earlier. Much of a living trunk's volume is water and air-filled cells. A tree's carbon comes almost entirely from the air, not from the soil, drawn in as carbon dioxide.
- Tree material. *A block of wood.*
- A small forest. *A beech wood.*
- Wooden. *A wooden chair.*
- Lignin — the stiffener. *Lignin.*
- Old English — *wudu*. *The source.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | wood | Wood. |
| Plural | woods | The woods. |
| Adjective | wooden | Wooden. |
| Adjective | wooded | Wooded. |
| Old English | wudu | Wood. |
- The table is solid wood.Material.
- A walk in the woods.Forest.
- Carbon comes from the air.Biology.
What wood is made of
- Cellulose — long fibres giving tensile strength
- Lignin — a rigid polymer resisting compression
- Hemicellulose — binding the two together
- Water — a large share of a living trunk
- Carbon drawn from the air as carbon dioxide, not from soil
Old English *wudu*, of Germanic origin, related to Old Norse *viðr*.
Where does a tree's mass come from?
Almost entirely from carbon dioxide in the air, not from the soil it grows in.
Why is wood strong?
It is a composite: cellulose fibres resist stretching while lignin resists compression, like steel in concrete.