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definitions

tree

[tree]
See more synonyms for tree on Thesaurus.com
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.
verb (used with object), treed, tree·ing.
  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, Informal. in a difficult or embarrassing situation; at a loss; stumped.

Origin of tree

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
Related formstree·like, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for trees

sapling, shrub, wood, forest, timber, seedling, woods, pulp, stock, softwood, hardwood, topiary

Examples from the Web for trees

Contemporary Examples of trees

Historical Examples of trees

  • Numerous lamps were lighted in the trees, making the gardens bright as noon.

    Philothea

    Lydia Maria Child

  • It was a short distance to the trees—twenty-five to forty yards, perhaps.

  • Then up the far slope he was lost at once in a host of trees.

  • And now, looking down the lane among the trees, he saw men surge into it.

  • It is certainly one of the most remarkable as well as celebrated of trees.

    The Grand Old Man

    Richard B. Cook

British Dictionary definitions for trees

Tree

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

tree

noun
  1. any large woody perennial plant with a distinct trunk giving rise to branches or leaves at some distance from the groundRelated adjective: arboreal
  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
    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. at the top of the tree in the highest position of a profession, etc
  10. up a tree US and Canadian informal in a difficult situation; trapped or stumped
verb trees, treeing or treed (tr)
  1. to drive or force up a tree
  2. to shape or stretch (a shoe) on a shoetree
Derived Formstreeless, adjectivetreelessness, nountreelike, adjective

Word Origin for tree

Old English trēo; related to Old Frisian, Old Norse trē, Old Saxon trio, Gothic triu, Greek doru wood, drus tree
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for trees

tree

n.

Old English treo, treow "tree" (also "wood"), from Proto-Germanic *trewan (cf. Old Frisian tre, Old Saxon trio, Old Norse tre, Gothic triu), from PIE *deru- "oak" (cf. Sanskrit dru "tree, wood," daru "wood, log;" Greek drys "oak," doru "spear;" Old Church Slavonic drievo "tree, wood;" Serbian drvo "tree," drva "wood;" Russian drevo "tree, wood;" Czech drva; Polish drwa "wood;" Lithuanian derva "pine wood;" Old Irish daur, Welsh derwen "oak," Albanian drusk "oak").

Importance of the oak in mythology is reflected in the recurring use of words for "oak" to mean "tree." In Old English and Middle English, also "thing made of wood," especially the cross of the Crucifixion and a gallows (cf. Tyburn tree, gallows mentioned 12c. at Tyburn, at junction of Oxford Street and Edgware Road, place of public execution for Middlesex until 1783). Sense in family tree first attested 1706; verb meaning "to chase up a tree" is from 1700. Tree-hugger, contemptuous for "environmentalist" is attested by 1989.

Minc'd Pyes do not grow upon every tree,
But search the Ovens for them, and there they be.
["Poor Robin," Almanack, 1669]
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
trees in Science

tree

[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.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
trees in Culture

“Trees”

(1913) A poem by the American poet Joyce Kilmer. Its opening lines are: “I think that I shall never see / A poem as lovely as a tree.”

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Idioms and Phrases with trees

tree

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.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.