fir
/fɝ/noun
fir is spelled F-I-R: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 3.0 times per million words in written English, the 15,368th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “fir vs fur” about 110 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, fir means “A conifer of the genus Abies” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of fir is firs.
How many letters and syllables are in fir?
| Letters | 3: F-I-R |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.0 times per million words; the 15,368th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is fir?
Fir appears 3.0 times per million words in written English, the 15,368th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce fir?
- UK /fɜː/
- British /fəː/
- US /fɝ/
Fir has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-fir.ogg, En-us-fir.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with fir
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: fur (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with fir?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as fir from its last stressed vowel (/ɜɹ/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of fir
- firs plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does fir mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A conifer of the genus Abies.
- 2
Any pinaceous conifer of related genera, especially a Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga) or a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris).
- 3
Wood of such trees.
adjective
- 1
Initialism of finite impulse response; that has impulse response (or response to any finite length input) of finite duration.
noun
- 1
Initialism of flight information region; a specified region of airspace in which a flight information service (FIS) and an alerting service (ALRS) are provided.
- 2
Initialism of first information report.
- 3
Abbreviation of far infrared or far infrared radiation.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Fir in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense conifer of the genus Abies:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | sapin |
| German | Tanne, Tannenbaum |
| Portuguese | abeto |
| Spanish | abeto |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does fir come from?
From Middle English firre, from Old English fyrh, furh, as in furhwudu (“pinewood”), from Proto-West Germanic *furhu, from Proto-Germanic *furhō, *furhijǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *pŕ̥kʷeh₂, from *pérkʷus (“oak”). Possibly conflated during Middle English with Old Norse fýri (as in fýriskógr (“pine-wood”). Germanic cognates include Dutch vuren, Low German Fuhr, German Föhre (“pine”), Danish fyr).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).