cedar
Americannoun
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any of several Old World, coniferous trees of the genus Cedrus, having wide, spreading branches.
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any of various junipers, as the red cedar, Juniperus virginiana, of the cypress family, having reddish-brown bark and dark-blue, berrylike fruit.
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any of various other coniferous trees.
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any of several trees belonging to the genus Cedrela, of the mahogany family, as the Spanish cedar.
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Also called cedarwood. the fragrant wood of any of these trees, used in furniture and as a moth repellent.
noun
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any Old World coniferous tree of the genus Cedrus, having spreading branches, needle-like evergreen leaves, and erect barrel-shaped cones: family Pinaceae See also cedar of Lebanon deodar
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any of various other conifers, such as the red cedars and white cedars
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the wood of any of these trees
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any of certain other plants, such as the Spanish cedar
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of cedar
before 1000; Middle English cedir, Old English ceder < Latin cedrus < Greek kédros; replacing Middle English cedre < Old French < Latin, as above
Explanation
A cedar is an evergreen tree with a particularly fragrant wood. The trees in your yard that keep their green needles through the winter might be cedars. There are many different varieties of cedars, including a popular Christmas tree in the Southern US, the Eastern Red Cedar. Cedars are probably best known for the strong, appealing scent of their wood, which is often used to line storage chests or closets, both for the smell and its tendency to repel moths. The Greek root of cedar is kedros.
Vocabulary lists containing cedar
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Today, Wahhoga Village includes a traditional roundhouse, traditional cedar bark houses known as umachas and the only cabin that the park service didn’t burn when it evicted the remaining families from the site in 1969.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Its species name, cedrus, refers to cedar trees, evergreen conifers similar to those that existed in Late Triassic forests.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 23, 2026
California Pizza Kitchen aims to highlight its diverse sit-down menu, which includes cedar plank salmon and braised short rib served with pappardelle pasta.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 5, 2026
These 4,600-year-old funerary boats, made of cedar and acacia, were intended to transport the king into the afterlife.
From Barron's ● Nov. 4, 2025
On the left was a grove of cedar trees and on the right a huge flower garden.
From "The Battle of the Labyrinth" by Rick Riordan
This was the place where families could raise their children in peace under the deodar cedars and watch the San Gabriels fade to a distinct purple as the sun set.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 7, 2026
"Previously, it was spruces or cedars, but today, we find endemic species better adapted to the climate," Merdan Arazmedov, a member of Turkmenistan's Nature Protection Society, told AFP.
From Barron's ● Dec. 18, 2025
Calvin turned on East Las Flores Drive, threading under the canopy of crape myrtles, pines and deodar cedars, and pulled up to his Midcentury ranch home and ran next door to check on his mom.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 17, 2025
By arborist Rebecca Latta’s estimate, thousands of trees in Altadena have been tagged for removal: oaks, pines, sycamores, deodar cedars — trees that have canopied the town for decades.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 3, 2025
The gloom of the forest didn’t relent, though, for there were six primordial cedars that shaded an entire acre with their vast sweep of branches.
From "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
