Furnitures

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Movable objects such as chairs, tables and beds used to equip a room or building ; in older usage, the trappings or fittings attached to something such as a horse
2. Pieces of movable equipment like chairs and cupboards that fill a home or office ; in older usage, the decorative accessories or harness fitted to an animal
3. Items such as tables, beds and seats that make a space usable for living or working ; an obsolete sense meaning the fittings, trappings or harness attached to a horse or other object

Etymology: "Furnitures" is the plural of "furniture," and the plural is rare in practice because the noun is almost always used as a mass term. It is the form of a word that began as something quite different from a set of chairs and tables. In Middle French, "fourniture" meant a supply, or the act of supplying or equipping something, and it came from "fournir," meaning "to furnish." The sense of equipping a space with necessary things carried over into English, where "furniture" first referred to the fittings and equipment needed for a purpose before narrowing to the movable goods that fill a house.