tree

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A tall plant with a wooden trunk, branches, and leaves.

   We sat in the shade of a big oak tree.

2. 2
   noun

   A diagram that branches out from a single starting point.

   She drew a family tree going back five generations.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Tree is an Old English word of Germanic origin. Its Germanic base also produced late Old English trīg, the ancestor of tray, whose earliest meaning may have been “wooden container.”

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *drew- Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Germanic *trewą Proto-West Germanic *treu Old English trēow Middle English tre English tree PIE word *dóru From Middle English trau, tre, tree, treo, treou, trew, trewe, troe, trouȝh, trouȝgh, trow, trowe, from Old English trēo, trēow, trēu, trīo, trīow, trȳw (“tree; wood; forest; beam, cudgel, log; cross”), from Proto-West Germanic *treu, from Proto-Germanic *trewą (“tree”), from pre-Germanic *dréwom, thematic e-grade derivative of Proto-Indo-European *dóru (“tree”). Related to tar, true. Cognates Cognate with Dutch te…

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