Other forms: hardwoods
Hardwood is wood from a slow-growing broadleaf tree. A hardwood floor, oak and other hardwoods, hardwood furniture.
The name is misleading: hardwood means the tree is a broadleaf with enclosed seeds, not that the wood is hard — balsa is a hardwood and yew is a softwood, and both are the wrong way round for the name. Hardwoods do generally grow slower and cost more. Note softwood, meaning conifer; and that hardwood floors are the ones that outlast everything else in a house.
1nounhardwoodWood from a broadleaf tree.
“The table is made from a solid hardwood like oak, so it will last for generations.”
hardwood is a kind of timber.
Hard plus wood. The term properly refers to the tree's seed being enclosed rather than to the timber's hardness, which is why balsa counts as a hardwood.
From hard + wood. The term refers to the seed coat of the tree's seeds; it does not refer to the degree of hardness of the tree's wood, but it seems to do so and is usually assumed to do so by speakers not well informed about trees and timber.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA