tree
/tɹiː/
"tree" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tree” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,508 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,508
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A perennial woody plant taller and larger than a shrub with a wooden trunk and, at some distance from the ground, having leaves and branches.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tree |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /tɹiː/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,508 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tree” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for tree is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /tɹiː/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,508 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for tree, with forms such as "rtee", "tere", and "trree". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "try", "tri", "Tue", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *drew- Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Germanic *trewą Proto-West Germanic *treu Old English trēow Middle English tre English tree PIE word *dóru From Middle English trau, tre, tree, treo, treou, trew, trewe, troe, trouȝh… The correct English form is tree, spelled T-R-E-E.
Definition
- 1A perennial woody plant taller and larger than a shrub with a wooden trunk and, at some distance from the ground, having leaves and branches.
- 2Any other plant (such as a large shrub or herb) that is reminiscent of the above in form and size.
- 3An object made from a tree trunk and having multiple hooks or storage platforms.
- 4A device used to hold or stretch a shoe open.
- 5The structural frame of a saddle.
- 6A connected graph with no cycles or, if the graph is finite, equivalently a connected graph with n vertices and n−1 edges.
- 7A recursive data structure in which each node has zero or more nodes as children, but does not share children with other nodes.
- 8A display or listing of entries or elements such that there are primary and secondary entries shown, usually linked by drawn lines or by indenting to the right.
- 9Any structure or construct having branches representing divergence or possible choices.
- 10The structure or wooden frame used in the construction of a saddle used in horse riding.
- 11Marijuana.
- 12A cross or gallows.
- 13A mass of crystals, aggregated in arborescent forms, obtained by precipitation of a metal from solution.
- 14The fifth Lenormand card.
- 15Alternative letter-case form of TREE.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *drew- Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Germanic *trewą Proto-West Germanic *treu Old English trēow Middle English tre English tree PIE word *dóru From Middle English trau, tre, tree, treo, treou, trew, trewe, troe, trouȝh, trouȝgh, trow, trowe, from Old English trēo, trēow, trēu, trīo, trīow, trȳw (“tree; wood; forest; beam, cudgel, log; cross”), from Proto-West Germanic *treu, from Proto-Germanic *trewą (“tree”), from pre-Germanic *dréwom, thematic e-grade derivative of Proto-Indo-European *dóru (“tree”). Related to tar, true. Cognates Cognate with Dutch teer (“tree”), Danish, Faroese, and Scanian træ (“tree; timber, wood”), Elfdalian trai (“tree; timber, wood”), Icelandic tré (“tree; wood”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk tre (“tree; wood”), Swedish trä (“wood; tree”), träd (“tree”), Gothic 𐍄𐍂𐌹𐌿 (triu, “piece of wood”); also Breton derv (“oak”), Cornish dar (“oak”), Irish dair (“oak”), Manx darragh (“oak; oaken”), Scottish Gaelic darach (“oak”), Welsh dâr (“oak”), Ancient Greek δόρυ (dóru, “tree; wood; spear”) (whence Greek δόρυ (dóry, “pike, spear”)), Albanian dru (“tree; wood”), Latvian darva (“tar”), Lithuanian derva (“tar; resin”), Belarusian дзе́рава (dzjérava, “tree”), дрэ́ва (dréva, “tree; wood”), Czech drvo, dřevo (“wood”), Polish drzewo (“tree; wood”), Russian де́рево (dérevo), дре́во (drévo, “tree; wood”), Serbo-Croatian др̏во, drȇvo, drijȇvo, drȋvo, dȑvo (“tree; wood”), Slovak and Slovene drevo (“tree; wood”), Ukrainian де́рево (dérevo, “tree; wood”), Armenian տարր (tarr, “element; component”), Avestan 𐬛𐬁𐬎𐬭𐬎 (dāᵘru, “wood”), Central Kurdish and Persian دار (dâr, “tree; wood”), Northern Kurdish dar (“tree”), Zazaki dare (“tree”), Hittite 𒋫𒊒 (taru), 𒋫𒀀𒊒 (táru, “tree; wood”), Luwian 𒋫𒀀𒊒 (tāru, “wood”), Tocharian A and Tocharian B or (“wood”), Sanskrit दारु (dāru, “timber, wood”). Replaced alternative Middle English beem, from Old English bēam (see beam) and eclipsed non-native Middle English arbre, borrowed from Old French arbre.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: rtee,tere,trree,ttree
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of tree - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “tree”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-R-E-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /tɹiː/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “try” - see the side-by-side comparison. tree vs try
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.