| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| tree |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  tr |
| NOUN: | 1a. A perennial woody plant having a main trunk and usually a distinct crown. b. A plant or shrub resembling a tree in form or size. 2. Something, such as a clothes tree, that resembles a tree in form. 3. A wooden beam, post, stake, or bar used as part of a framework or structure. 4. A saddletree. 5. A diagram that has branches in descending lines showing relationships as of hierarchy or lineage: a family tree; a telephone tree. 6. Computer Science A structure for organizing or classifying data in which every item can be traced to a single origin through a unique path. 7. Archaic a. A gallows. b. The cross on which Jesus was crucified. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: treed, tree·ing, trees
1. To force up a tree: Dogs treed the raccoon. 2. Informal To force into a difficult position; corner. 3. To supply with trees: treed the field with oaks. 4. To stretch (a shoe or boot) onto a shoetree. | | IDIOM: | up a tree Informal In a situation of great difficulty or perplexity; helpless. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English, from Old English trow. See deru- in Appendix I. | | OTHER FORMS: | tree less —ADJECTIVE
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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