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• tree
  tree

  noun

  a plant having a permanently woody main stem or trunk, ordinarily growing to a considerable height, and usually developing branches at some distance from the ground.
• Tree
  Tree

  noun

  Sir Herbert Beerbohm Herbert Beerbohm, 1853–1917, English actor and theater manager; brother of Max Beerbohm.

tree

¹ American  

[tree] / tri /

noun

1. a plant having a permanently woody main stem or trunk, ordinarily growing to a considerable height, and usually developing branches at some distance from the ground.

2. any of various shrubs, bushes, and plants, as the banana, resembling a tree in form and size.

3. something resembling a tree in shape, as a clothes tree or a crosstree.

4. Mathematics, Linguistics. tree diagram.

5. family tree.

6. a pole, post, beam, bar, handle, or the like, as one forming part of some structure.

7. a shoetree or boot tree.

8. a saddletree.

9. a treelike group of crystals, as one forming in an electrolytic cell.

10. a gallows or gibbet.

11. the cross on which Christ was crucified.

12. Computers. a data structure organized like a tree whose nodes store data elements and whose branches represent pointers to other nodes in the tree.

13. Christmas tree.

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verb (used with object)

treed, treeing

1. to drive into or up a tree, as a pursued animal or person.

2. Informal. to put into a difficult position.

3. to stretch or shape on a tree, as a boot.

4. to furnish (a structure) with a tree.

idioms

1. up a tree, in a difficult or embarrassing situation; at a loss; stumped.

Tree ² American  

[tree] / tri /

noun

1. Sir Herbert Beerbohm Herbert Beerbohm, 1853–1917, English actor and theater manager; brother of Max Beerbohm.

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Tree ¹ British  

/ triː /

noun

1. Sir Herbert Beerbohm . 1853–1917, English actor and theatre manager; half-brother of Sir Max Beerbohm. He was noted for his lavish productions of Shakespeare

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tree ² British  

/ triː /

noun

1. any large woody perennial plant with a distinct trunk giving rise to branches or leaves at some distance from the ground

2. any plant that resembles this but has a trunk not made of wood, such as a palm tree

3. a wooden post, bar, etc

4. See family tree shoetree saddletree

5. chem a treelike crystal growth; dendrite

6. 1. a branching diagrammatic representation of something, such as the grammatical structure of a sentence

   2. ( as modifier )

      a tree diagram

7. an archaic word for gallows

8. archaic the cross on which Christ was crucified

9. in the highest position of a profession, etc

10. informal in a difficult situation; trapped or stumped

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verb

1. to drive or force up a tree

2. to shape or stretch (a shoe) on a shoetree

tree Scientific  

/ trē /

1. Any of a wide variety of perennial plants typically having a single woody stem, and usually branches and leaves. Many species of both gymnosperms (notably the conifers) and angiosperms grow in the form of trees. The ancient forests of the Devonian, Mississippian, and Pennsylvanian periods of the Paleozoic Era were dominated by trees belonging to groups of seedless plants such as the lycophytes. The strength and height of trees are made possible by the supportive conductive tissue known as vascular tissue.

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tree More Idioms  

1. see bark up the wrong tree; can't see the forest for the trees; talk someone's arm off (the bark off a tree); up a tree.

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Other Word Forms

• treeless
  adjective
• treelessness
  noun
• treelike
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of tree

First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English trēo(w); cognate with Old Frisian, Old Norse trē, Old Saxon treo, Gothic triu; akin to Greek drŷs “oak,” Sanskrit, Avestan dru “wood”

Explanation

A tree is a large plant with a trunk, branches, and leaves. If you have an apple tree in your backyard, you'll have apples in the fall — and a nice shady place to sit in the summer. The thick, woody trunk is actually the stem of a tree, and its ability to grow so much taller than other plants evolved partly as a way for trees to absorb more sunlight. Trees do a lot for humans, including providing oxygen, giving us places to climb, producing fruit, shading us, and providing lumber and fuel. As a verb, tree means "chase into a tree," the way your dog might tree the neighbor's cat.

Example Sentences

“Greeted with grace, the residence welcomes you with gated tree lined canopy entry set back nicely from the street,” the description continues.

From MarketWatch • May 18, 2026

"Here we have two hominin species that are together. And human evolution is not linear, it's a bushy tree, there are life forms that go extinct."

From Science Daily • May 16, 2026

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that she’d give a starring role to a 200-year-old tree, which just may inspire the needed answers.

From Los Angeles Times • May 15, 2026

"My legs, they just feel like trunks, tree trunks," he told the BBC.

From BBC • May 14, 2026

It smelt of hunter and prey and Fast Wet and tree, all chewed up together, and from it came a high, thin humming: so high that Wolf could only just catch it.

From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver

Related Words

• forest
• sapling
• seedling
• shrub
• timber
• wood