sequoia
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of sequoia
An Americanism dating back to 1840–50; named after Sequoya
Explanation
A sequoia is an ancient, towering redwood tree that grows on the coast of northern California and southern Oregon. Sequoias are the largest trees on Earth. Before commercial logging destroyed many of them, giant sequoias covered the entire coast of California, filling about two million acres of forest. The remaining trees are among the very oldest things on our planet; some are more than 2,000 years old. Sequoias are massive evergreens, the largest of which is as tall as a 30-story building. The sequoia was named after the Cherokee man, Sequoya, who invented a written form of the Cherokee language in the 1820s.
Vocabulary lists containing sequoia
Scrabble: Words with 5 Vowels
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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.
Bringing a sequoia to Newtown—site of the Sandy Hook attack on schoolchildren—resonates deeply.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026
That made planting a sequoia an act of radical optimism, something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026
First protected in 1864, Yosemite National Park in California's Sierra Nevada mountains is internationally acclaimed for its spectacular granite cliffs, glaciers, waterfalls, sequoia trees and wildlife.
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
The researchers also estimated that another 3,900 trees might have survived if every sequoia in the affected groves had received similar treatment.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026
More dryads emerged from other trees; some were eight feet tall, their skin the soft cream brown of a sequoia, others the near black of the alder tree.
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
