Meaning & use
wooden
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Meanings
adjectivebefore a noun
Made of wood.
Grammar: Used before a noun: a wooden table. Not usually after a verb.
Patterns
- wooden + noun
She placed the vase on the wooden table.
The old wooden bridge creaked under our feet.
They bought a set of wooden toys for their son.
adjectivenot comparablefigurative
Stiff and awkward, lacking natural ease or expression.
Grammar: Describes a person's manner, movement, or performance; not used with 'more' or 'most'.
Patterns
- wooden + noun
- sound wooden
His wooden delivery made the speech hard to enjoy.
She felt wooden on stage and forgot to relax.
The actor's wooden performance drew criticism from reviewers.
Word forms
| comparative | more wooden |
|---|---|
| superlative | most wooden |
Common combinations
- wooden floor
- The dancers slid across the polished wooden floor.
- wooden spoon
- Use a wooden spoon to stir the sauce.
- wooden box
- He kept his tools in a wooden box.
- wooden expression
- Her wooden expression gave nothing away.
Synonyms and how they differ
- stiff
- Stiff is broader and can describe physical rigidity or formal behavior; wooden usually suggests a lack of natural ease in performance or manner.
- awkward
- Awkward emphasizes discomfort or lack of grace; wooden focuses on stiffness and lack of expression.
Opposites
Word family
- wood noun
- The hard material from trees.
- woodenly adverb
- In a stiff, awkward way.
- woodenness noun
- The quality of being stiff or awkward.
Commonly confused: wooden or woodsy?
wooden vs woodsy
Woodsy means 'like a forest' and is a different word; wooden means 'made of wood' or 'stiff'.
Practice
Choose the best word to complete the sentence: The new employee gave a ______ answer that sounded memorized and unnatural.
Choose one answer.
'Wooden' fits because it describes a stiff, unnatural manner. 'Woody' means 'like wood' or 'covered with trees', 'wooded' describes an area with many trees, and 'wood' is the material itself, not a description of someone's delivery.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “wooden”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.