Technically speaking, a furry is an animal given human-like qualities such as personality, ability to walk on two legs, speech, and intelligence. An adjective for an animal with human-like qualities is called anthropomorphic. Anthro- meaning "two legged human" and pomorphic- meaning "shaped" (The short hand for this word will be "anthro") giving the definition of anthro "a furry is a creature human shaped."

Now, the secondary meaning to furry is a person who takes interest in giving animals some human features (I will call the people furs to clear any confusion). These furs will draw or paint these humanoid creatures or might make a costume called a fursuit to wear so they can bring the fictional beast to life.

Furs are not new to the world. In fact, the idea of furries has existed as long as humans. The first time these furry creatures were shown dates all the way back to ancient times when a sculpture of a lion man was made. 40,000 years ago, a statue of a lion standing on two legs was made. When discovered thousands of years later in a German cave, it was called Lowenmensch meaning "Lion human". 

Thousands and thousands of years later, humans started making animal headed gods and goddesses. Take Egypt for example: the god Anubis is a jackal headed man who can speak perfectly fine through a hound's mouth. 

Even further into the future, people started making these anthro characters into TV stars in the 1920's or so. With Disney's introduction to Mickey Mouse and Stalling's introduction to Bugs Bunny, it was clear that furries still existed after all those years. However, these creatures made by Walt Disney and Carl Stalling were named "funny animals" since most of the cartoons they were in were pretty funny. 

Around the 80's or 90's a man in the United States Airforce made his own animal cartoon into a comic. But this cartoon wasn't all that funny. It was a hard science novel (meaning it was based on scientific facts) about these animals in space called Albedo Anthropomorphics. He made a few copies and passed them out in a science-fiction convention and quite a lot of people loved it. 

That's when the "funny animal" name started to wear off since this man made a serious book. The people who took interest in the now ex-funny animals decided to call them what they are. Not fuzzy. Not fluffy. But furry. These furry fans decided to meet at science-fiction conventions to share art and comics. Soon, the amount of furry fans grew and grew as they watched the Animalympics on a projector. The furs were everywhere in the science-fiction convention when eventually, science fans were sick of them and told them to leave which they did.

They made their first convention called Confurence 0. This was a test convention, just to see who was interested in it. There were roughly 60 attendees. The next convention, Confurence 1, racked up about 120 visitors. These conventions kept pulling in more and more furry fans making the furry fans not just a club anymore, but a fandom.