: any of a genus (Fraxinus) of trees of the olive family with pinnate leaves, thin furrowed bark, and gray branchlets
2
: the tough elastic wood of an ash
3
[Old English æsc, name of the corresponding runic letter]: the ligature æ used in Old English and some phonetic alphabets to represent a low front vowel \a\
Noun (2)
a new and more splendid city was built on the ashes of the old
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
Several interior color schemes trim styles are offered including black, ash bamboo, black open-pore wood and dark-finished aluminum.—James Raia, The Mercury News, 29 May 2024 The potential for mudflows and ash fall that could last months to years would disrupt air, rail and road traffic along the I-5 corridor.—Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 20 May 2024 As the ash particles rub up against one another, their atoms shed or pick up electrons, which creates positively and negatively charged areas of the ash plume, according to the Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo.—Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 15 May 2024 Along with the tombs, the archaeologists uncovered burn or ash pits that had a circular or elliptical shape and were made from gray and black soil.—Irene Wright, Miami Herald, 15 May 2024 See all Example Sentences for ash
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ash.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
Middle English asshe, from Old English æsc; akin to Old High German ask ash, Latin ornus mountain ash
Noun (2)
Middle English, usually as plural asshen, askes, axen, ashes, going back to Old English axe, asce (feminine weak noun), going back to Germanic *askōn- (whence also Old Saxon asc-, in ascal "ash-colored," Old High German asca, ascha "ash," Old Norse aska) beside apparent *azgō in Gothic azgo "ash," both of uncertain origin
Note:
The older handbooks see the Germanic etymon as a "root extension" of a verbal base *ā̌s- "burn," in current laryngealist terms *h1eh2s-,*h2h̥1s- "make dry through heat" ("[durch Hitze] vertrocknen" in Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben)—see etymology and note at arid. The discrepancy between West and North Germanic ask- (from *azg-?) and Gothic azg- (from *azgh-?) is variously explained. E. Seebold (Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 22. Auflage) regards the velar extension as a suffix of appurtenance, the ashes being in effect "what belongs to the hearth/fire." (Also of relevance would be Armenian azazim "become dry, wither," if from *h2h̥1s-gh- —see H. Martirosyan, Etymologial Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon, Brill, 2010 s.v.) Seebold sees the "ash" words with long vowels (Hittite ḫāšš- "ashes, dust," Sanskrit ā́saḥ) as parallel derivations, in this case by the employment of lengthened grade. The inconvenient Gothic word azgo is explained as the outcome of a suffixed verbal derivative *haz-d-ko- (on the verbal derivative see azalea). Departing completely from the root-extension hypotheses, G. Kroonen (Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Brill, 2013) sees the Germanic word as a possible compound of Indo-European *h2ed- "dry up" and *dhegwh- "burn."
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