• tree •
Pronunciation: tree • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. A large perennial woody plant having a main trunk from which branches grow to form a distinct crown. 2. Any branching object resembling a tree in form, such as a sentence diagram or a genealogical diagram of a family. 3. A pole, beam, or wooden bar forming part of an animal-drawn vehicle, plow, etc., for example an axel-tree.
Notes: 
This word may be used as verb, meaning "to drive up or scale a tree". An area with trees may be said to be treed and an area without trees is treeless. A small or young tree is a treelet. It is used in several compounds referring to a block for holding or holding the shape of something, such as a shoetree or saddletree.
In Play: Trees not only provide shelter for birds and small animals: "When the rain spoiled the picnic, all the participants took shelter under the crown of a giant oak tree." This word appears in many idioms: "Everyone thought Harley Davidson couldn't see the forest for the trees when he suggested an electric fork to accompany his company's electric knife."
Word History: In Old English today's Good Word was spelled treow, from Proto-Germanic trewam, source also of Norwegian tre, Danish træ, and Swedish träd. Trewam is what Old Germanic made of PIE deru-/doru- "hard, solid, tree", traces of which are found in Sanskrit daru "wood", Greek drys "oak" and doru "tree, spear", Latin durus "hard, tough", Irish dair "oak", Welsh derw "oak", Albanian dru "tree, wood", Polish drzewo, Russian derevo "tree" and zdorov "healthy", from iz "out of" + dorovo, Serbian drvo "tree, wood", and Lithuanian derva "resin" (from a pine tree). (Now a word of gratitude to newcomer B. J. Herbison for seeing the interest in this ordinary Good Word in the discussion of Christmas-tree and sharing it with us.)
P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!
