DictionaryAI

tree

TREE/tɹiː/

Pluraltrees

14 meanings of tree

Practice

  1. 1
    woody plantnouncountable
    A tall perennial plant with a woody trunk or main stem bearing branches and leaves well above the ground; loosely, a similar tall plant without true wood, such as a banana or tree fern.

    A single tree stood at the center of the empty meadow.

    Loggers felled the trees that lined the ridge above the valley.

    UsageBirds and climbers are in a tree; leaves and fruit grow on a tree.

    Note

    The Old English word covered more ground: wood, timber, beam, log, stake, grove. The plant kept the name while most of those wider meanings fell away.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

    • Old English trēow could mean wood, timber, beam, log, stake and grove. gutenberg.org
  2. 2
    branching chartnouncountable
    A branching diagram or display that shows how things are related, grouped, or divided into choices.

    The strategist sketched a tree showing how each decision led to new options.

    Each branch of the tree represented a different possible outcome.

    UsageOften in compounds: family tree, decision tree.

    Note

    A family tree traces descent, and a skill tree lays out abilities unlocked one choice at a time. Any diagram in which one point splits into several paths can be called a tree, whether the branches stand for ancestry, options or outcomes.

    Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

  3. 3
    data structurenouncountable
    In mathematics and computing, a branching structure of connected points with no loops, used to model hierarchies and to store data.

    The compiler builds a tree to represent the structure of the parsed program.

    Inserting a value into a balanced tree keeps later lookups efficient.

    Note

    Computing's tree has a direction that the graph theorist's lacks. Nodes have children, and because no child is shared, every node except the root has exactly one parent. The definition is recursive: each child heads a smaller tree of its own, a subtree. That is why so many tree algorithms are written as functions that call themselves.

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

    • Computing trees have a parent–child direction, whereas an ordinary graph-theoretic tree is undirected. cs.umd.edu
    • Each non-root node has exactly one parent, so children are not shared between parents. cs.toronto.edu
    • Trees are recursively structured, with each child heading a subtree. cs.cmu.edu
    • The recursive structure naturally supports recursive algorithms for processing trees. cs.cornell.edu

Practice

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Origin

"Tree" comes from Middle English "tre, tree" and Old English "trēow" (meaning tree, wood, timber, beam, or cross), from Proto-West Germanic *treu and Proto-Germanic *trewą ("tree, wood"), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European noun *dóru ("tree"). Cognates include Icelandic "tré," Swedish "trä," Sanskrit "dāru," and Ancient Greek "dóru," and it is related to English "tar" and "true."

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 10 facts