Strengths of plywood subjected to in-plane tension, bending, and interior pressure in a hole were experimentally investigated. The tested plywood is composed of nine plies of lauan veneer, and the plies are bonded together with melamine-urea-formaldehyde cocondensate adhesives. These tests, when the axis of tensile or bending specimen is inclined to the face grain, reveal the reason why plywood is so resistant against splitting failure is owing to the alternate perpendicular plies of veneer as well as the sufficient shear strength of adhesive bond. In such a case, the crack of veneer is interrupted by neighborhood veneer, and then the fracture path is associated with shear failure of the bond. In other words, either tensile or bending strength of such an inclined plywood member is substantially elevated by the shear strength of the bond. For the same reason, the holed plate under interior pressure does not split but experiences compressive yielding only if the edge distance is greater than double the diameter of the hole.