Word Confusion: Fir versus Fur

Plural: firs

Plural for the noun: furs
Gerund: furring

Third person present verb: furs
Past tense or past participle: furred
Present participle: furring

• There are many species of Abies Pinaceae

[Often in combination with furred] Covered with or made from a particular type of fur

Relating to the Fur or their language

Noun:
The short, fine, soft hair of certain animals

• The skin of an animal with fur on it
• Skins with fur on them, or fabrics resembling these, used as material for making, trimming, or lining clothes
• A garment made of, trimmed, or lined with fur
• [Heraldry] Any of several heraldic tinctures representing animal skins in stylized form

[British] A coating formed by hard water on the inside surface of a pipe, kettle, or other container

• A coating formed on the tongue, typically as a symptom of sickness or a hangover

Proper Noun:
A member of a Muslim people of the mountainous and desert regions of south-western Sudan

The language of the Fur, an isolated member of the Nilo-Saharan family, with about 500,000 speakers

Verb, transitive:
[British] Coat or clog with a deposit

Fix strips of wood to floor joists, wall studs, etc., in order to level them or increase their depth

Most Christmas trees are firs.

Douglas firs have excellent strength properties and is well known for its workability.

Balsam firs have the most incredible fragrance.

The white fir is distinctive for its silvery green needles.

It was a wilderness of cathedral-like redwoods, of ferns and huckleberries, oaks and stately firs, and a myriad of flowers and wildlife.

Here and there, clumps of fir and birch trees rise out of the muddy wastes.

I’ve had my share of disasters from grasshoppers, including having the bark on my young evergreen firs eaten when there was still lots of other forage.

The vista beyond was dotted with leafless trees and throngs of firs and pine.

As you ascend its mountains, you travel through rich forests of oak, juniper, and cypress in the canyons, and on the higher slopes, you’ll see pines, firs, and aspens.

As firs, redwoods, and oaks matured in her Hillsboro, Oregon, landscape, she started sculpting her many perennial beds.

For spruces, firs, and Douglas-fir, three or more years are usually needed to produce high quality planting stock.

They have also grown juniper shrubs and maple, fir and pine trees.

Conifers are seed plants and include pines, firs, yew, redwood, and many other large trees.

Fur traders trapped beavers for London top hats.

One of the rarest animals on earth, silky-furred lemurs can be found in Madagascar.

Before that, Darfur was under the control of the indigenous Fur sultanate.

Noun:
I saw this long, lean, muscular cat with sleek fur.

Kari would love a buffalo fur bedspread.

Are you kidding? These jackets are made out of yak fur.

She pulled the fur around her.

Tinctures are divided into three kinds: colors, metals, and furs.

Fur in your teakettle can be an indicator that you have hard water.

Fur or scale can be found not just in kettles but in other hidden parts of the hot-water system.

I swear, my tongue feels like it’s covered in fur.

Ooh, baby, the fur was a’flying.

Oh, that Jim, he likes to hunt fur and feather.

Proper Noun:
Darfur means “Homeland of the Fur”, the name of one of the remote region’s sedentary, non-Arab tribes.

Among the Fur, property is usually sold upon the death of its owner; land is owned jointly by kin groups and therefore not divided upon death.

The atrocities carried out by the Janjawiid are aimed at speakers of Fur, Tunjur, Masalit, and Zaghawa.

Verb, transitive:
How can you eat that stuff when it furs up coronary arteries?

Even a few hours in the sun, can cause fruit to fur with mold.

The drain could be concealed by furring out the original wall.

You can accomplish both those tasks by furring the floor up using lumber and plywood.