Dictionary

thorn tree en · NOUN

Etymology

From Middle English thornetre; equivalent to thorn + tree.

Meanings

1. Any tree with thorn-like leaves, especially the acacia.
   • Thirty feet below her, where the Persians were crashing through the brush, the streambed kinked to the left side of the ravine and ran under an enormous thorn tree with a thick base. 2007 April 1, Thomas Harlan, The Shadow of Ararat: Book One of 'The Oath of Empire', page 294:
   • I WOULD HAVE been nine or ten when my mother chased me up a thorn tree with a ceremonial hippo-hide whip. What my crime was, I forget. My mother was, and remains, a woman of exceptional forbearance. I must have done something so obnoxious as to beggar belief. 2010 August 3, David Bennun, Tick Bite Fever, Random House, page 109:
   • They then came together to hear the preaching of the Gospel; but I postponed it till the evening, because I was then exceedingly wearied. The captain shewed me a large old thorn tree for a lodging. 1811, “Visit to the Great Namaquas”, in The Missionary Herald at Home and Abroad, volume 6, page 466:

Forms

Translations (3)

mhr акаций (Tree with thorns) · de Dornenbaum (Tree with thorns) · af doringboom (Tree with thorns)