Word.ws English Dictionary

arborvitae

/ˌɑɹbɚˈvaɪti/

arborvitae noun: any of several North American or Asian conifers, of the genera Thuja and Thujopsis or the species Platycladus orientalis, grown for timber or ornament.

arborvitae: any of several North American or Asian conifers, of the genera Thuja and Thujopsis or the species...
Image: yeowatzup at Flickr, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

arborvitae (plural arborvitaes)

  1. Any of several North American or Asian conifers, of the genera Thuja and Thujopsis or the species Platycladus orientalis, grown for timber or ornament.
    • She was at that moment just outside the door, and from the position of the Colonel, framed between the pillars at the other end of the piazza and against the dark green foliage of an arborvitae standing beyond.1862, Henry Morford, Shoulder-Straps […] , Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson & Bros.
    Synonyms:
    tree of life
  2. The white nerve tissue of the cerebellum that has a branching structure.

Synonyms of arborvitae

Forms of arborvitae

pluralarborvitaes
alternative formarbor vitae
alternative form (obsolete)arborvitæ

Origin of arborvitae

From Latin arbor (“tree”) + vitae (“of life”), literally “tree of life”, probably referring to the evergreen leaves. The anatomical sense from the branched, tree-like appearance of the tissue.

Questions about arborvitae

What does arborvitae mean?
Arborvitae means any of several North American or Asian conifers, of the genera Thuja and Thujopsis or the species Platycladus orientalis, grown for timber or ornament.
What part of speech is arborvitae?
Arborvitae is a noun.
How do you pronounce arborvitae?
Arborvitae is pronounced /ˌɑɹbɚˈvaɪti/.
What is the plural of arborvitae?
The plural of arborvitae is arborvitaes.

Words near arborvitae in the dictionary

  1. arborous
  2. arbors
  3. arborsculpture
  4. arborvirus
  5. arborviruses
  6. arborvitae
  7. arborvitaes
  8. arborvitæ
  9. arborway
  10. arborways
  11. Arbory

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: arborvitae (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-arborvitae.wav.

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