Word Confusion: Wood versus Would

Plural for the noun: woods
Gerund: wooding

Third person present verb: woods
Past tense or past participle: wooded
Present participle: wooding

Third person present verb: wills
Past tense or past participle: would, willed
Present participle: willing

• Wooden

Used to store, work, or carry wood

Dwelling or growing in woods

[Archaic] Wild, as with rage or excitement ²

Mad

• Insane

Noun:
[Botany] Hard fibrous material that forms the main substance of the trunk or branches of a tree or shrub ¹

• Wood when cut and used as timber or fuel
• [Golf] A golf club with a wooden or other head that is relatively broad from face to back (often with a numeral indicating the degree to which the face is angled to loft the ball)
• [Golf] A golf shot made with a wood
• [Construction] Lumber

[Also woods; used with a singular or plural verb] An area of land, smaller than a forest, that is covered with growing trees

[Music] A woodwind instrument

• The section of a band or orchestra composed of woodwinds

The cask, barrel, or keg, as distinguished from the bottle

[Forestry] Firewood

• Fuel

[Tennis, squash, badminton] The frame of a racket

One of the biased wooden bowls used in the game of bowls

[Slang] An erect penis

Verb, intransitive:
To take in or get supplies of wood (often followed by up) ¹

Verb, transitive:
To cover or plant with trees ¹

To supply with wood

• Get supplies of wood for

Expressing a request

• Expressing desire, consent, or willingness

Expressing facts about ability or capacity

Expressing habitual behavior

• [Pronounced stressing] Indicating annoyance about the habitual behavior described

Expressing probability or expectation about something in the present

Sparrows, nuthatches, and titmouses are all wood birds.

A wooden gunstock has a nicer feel than the plastic ones.

Noun:
Pine is a soft wood and great for starting a fire.

It was a large table made of dark, polished wood.

Only the best quality woods were used for joinery.

She had a wood cross hung over her bed.

Helen usually uses her one wood to tee off.

A well-hit fairway wood shot feels solid.

She hit a wood off the tee.

A thick hedge divided the wood from the field.

Jane and George took a long walk in the woods.

It had been well-aged in the wood.

We’re not out of the woods yet.

He hit a winning shot off the wood.

Everything is going well, knock on wood.

In Burwash, I learned to play bowls, using woods which we rolled at the jack.

Man, she gave me total wood.

Verb, intransitive:
We’ll need to wood up before the approach of winter.

“The northern cove is the most commodious for wooding and watering” (Kerr).

“The lanterns on shore began to move boatward as the last of the wooding was finished and the fuel boxes again were full” (Mulford).

Verb, transitive:
Jensen’s has the contract to wood steamboats.

“Many passengers would save a little by helping to wood the boat” (Bidwell, 106).

Come what may, I would succeed.

Accidents would happen.

Would you stop here, please.

Would you like a cognac?

It was a rock so light that it would float on water.

Your tank would hold about 26 gallons.

She would dance for hours.

He would keep on intruding.

They would be miles away by now.

1. Old English wudu, from a Germanic word related to the Welsh gwŷdd meaning trees.
2. Before 900 Old English wōd became Middle English; cognate with the Old Norse ōthr, which is akin to the German Wut meaning rage, the Old English wōth meaning song.