tree
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A tall perennial woody plant having a main trunk and branches forming a distinct elevated crown.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
treeIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtɹi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A tall perennial woody plant having a main trunk and branches forming a distinct elevated crown; includes both gymnosperms and angiosperms
A perennial woody plant taller and larger than a shrub with a wooden trunk and, at some distance from the ground, having leaves and branches.
Any other plant (such as a large shrub or herb) that is reminiscent of the above in form and size.
Any structure or construct having branches representing divergence or possible choices.
An object made from a tree trunk and having multiple hooks or storage platforms.
computing theory
A recursive data structure in which each node has zero or more nodes as children, but does not share children with other nodes.
verb
Chase an animal up a tree
“The hunters treed the bear with dogs and killed it.”
intransitive
To take refuge in a tree.
transitive
To place upon a shoe tree; to fit with a shoe tree; to stretch upon a shoe tree.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A tall perennial woody plant having a main trunk and branches forming a distinct elevated crown; includes both gymnosperms and angiosperms
Used this way, tree is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A variety of club moss.
Small bushy tree grown on islands of the Caribbean and off the Atlantic coast of the southern United States.
Any of various small insectivorous birds of the northern hemisphere that climb up a tree trunk supporting themselves on stiff tail feathers and their feet.
Pale arboreal American cricket noted for loud stridulation.
A figure that branches from a single root.
A forest (or part of a forest) where trees are grown for commercial use.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.