Dictionary

arboreal en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ɑɹˈbɔɹi.əl/ (General-American)
• /ɑːˈbɔːɹɪ.əl/ (UK)

Etymology

From Latin arboreus (“tree-like”) + -al, mid-17th century.

Meanings

1. Of, relating to, or resembling a tree.
   • No trees have grown on the windswept Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean for tens of thousands of years — just shrubs and other low-lying vegetation. That’s why a recent arboreal discovery nearly 20 feet (6 meters) beneath the ground caught researchers’ attention. 2024 September 27, Katie Hunt, “Scientists discover hidden ancient forest on treeless island”, in CNN, archived from the original on 17 Nov 2024:
   • In the mild breezes of the west and of the east lofty trees wave in different directions their first class foliage, the wafty sycamore, the Lebanonian cedar, the exalted planetree, the eugenic eucalyptus and other ornaments of the arboreal world with which that region is thoroughly well supplied. 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, London: The Egoist Press, page 282:
   • The sleek Brazilian jaguar Does not in its arboreal gloom Distil so rank a feline smell As Grishkin in a drawing-room. 1919, T. S. Eliot, “Whispers of Immortality”, in Selected Poems, Penguin, published 1948:
   • Only short blocks away traffic flowed turbulently on Flatbush Avenue […] but here the arboreal green and the pollen-hazy light, the infrequent trucks and cars, the casual pace of the few strollers at the park’s border all created the effect of an outlying area in a modest Southern city […] 1979, William Styron, chapter 2, in Sophie’s Choice, New York: Random House, page 37:
   • High and sacred, in good troth, is the power of the microcosmical spirit, which without any arboreal trunck produceth a true Cherry: 1650, Jan Baptist van Helmont, “Of the Magnetick Cure of Wounds”, in Walter Charleton, transl., A Ternary of Paradoxes, London: William Lee, page 72:
2. Living in or among trees.
   • […] faced with this emergency, Tessie took Chapter Eleven and me up to the attic. Maybe it was a vestige of our arboreal past; we wanted to climb up and out of danger. 2002, Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Book 3, p. 239:
   • Typically, tarantulas are either terrestrial or arboreal, but the Chilobrachys natanicharum can live in both enivronments^([sic – meaning environments]), the researchers said, demonstrating its adaptability. 2023 September 26, Hafsa Khalil, “Electric blue tarantula species discovered in Thailand”, in CNN, archived from the original on 06 Oct 2023:
   • If the harvest mouse had been more strictly arboreal, it would perhaps have had its tail rendered structurally prehensile, as is the case with some members of the same order. 1872, Charles Darwin, chapter 7, in The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 6th edition, London: Odhams Press, page 233:
   • An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees. 1911, Ambrose Bierce, “monkey”, in The Devil’s Dictionary, New York, N.Y.; Washington, D.C.: The Neale Publishing Company, →OCLC:
3. Covered or filled with trees.
   • The breadth of the arboreal landscape requires a longer list of living creatures, and creatures of greater bulk. 1885, Richard Jefferies, “Forest”, in The Open Air,, London: Chatto and Windus, page 188:
   • mountains, unlike the arboreal garden and the sacred stream, had gone unmentioned in the account of Creation given in Genesis 1995, Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory, New York: Knopf, Part 3, Chapter 7, p. 426:
   • She married him, and the two of them settled down in this quiet, arboreal part of Kensington: 1945, Elizabeth Bowen, “The Demon Lover”, in The Demon Lover and Other Stories,, London: Jonathan Cape, page 96:

Forms

Deriveds

arboreally · nonarboreal · arborealism · Monte Cristo arboreal alligator lizard · arborealist · semiarboreal · arboreality · subarboreal

Relateds

boreal · dendritic · arboreous · arborous · sylvan · arbor · arborescent

Synonyms

arboreous

Translations (40)

de baumlebend (living in or among trees) · fi puussa elävä (living in or among trees) · de arboricol (living in or among trees) · cy prendrig (living in or among trees) · cy coedaidd (pertaining to trees) · br annezer-gwez (living in or among trees) · nl boomlevend (living in or among trees) · fa درختی (pertaining to trees) · de baumartig (pertaining to trees) · nl arboreal (living in or among trees) · tl puhuyin (living in or among trees) · ga crannach (living in or among trees) · nl boomachtig (pertaining to trees) · ru древе́сный (pertaining to trees) · fr arborescent (pertaining to trees) · pt arbóreo (living in or among trees) · fi puu- (pertaining to trees) · tl kakahuynin (living in or among trees) · io arborala (pertaining to trees) · it arboricolo (living in or among trees) · br gwezennek (living in or among trees) · tr ağaçsı (pertaining to trees) · it arboricolo (pertaining to trees) · es arbóreo (pertaining to trees) · it arboreo (pertaining to trees) · es arborícola (living in or among trees) · br gwezheñvel (pertaining to trees) · tr ağaçlık (pertaining to trees) · pl nadrzewny (living in or among trees) · pt arbóreo (pertaining to trees) · pt arborícola (living in or among trees) · fr arboricole (living in or among trees) · ar شجري (pertaining to trees) · is trjábýll (living in or among trees) · uk деревни́й (pertaining to trees) · ca arborícola (living in or among trees) · sv trädlevande (living in or among trees) · de baumähnlich (pertaining to trees) · cy coedol (pertaining to trees) · ru древе́сный (living in or among trees)

arboreal en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ɑɹˈbɔɹi.əl/ (General-American)
• /ɑːˈbɔːɹɪ.əl/ (UK)

Etymology

From Latin arboreus (“tree-like”) + -al, mid-17th century.

Meanings

1. Any tree-dwelling creature.
   • So, by learning to use their eyes to more and more advantage the arboreals added another treasure to the foundation of human intelligence. 1971, Theo Lang, The difference between a man and a woman:

Forms