Word.ws English Dictionary

topiary

UK/ˈtəʊpjəɹi/US/ˈtoʊpiˌɛəɹi/

topiary adjective: of, or relating to art of topiaries.

topiary: of, or relating to art of topiaries
Image: TerriersFan, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

topiary (not comparable)

  1. Of, or relating to art of topiaries.
    • As the topiary art has been allowed to practically die out, it is difficult to secure the services of skilled clippers.1910, American homes and gardens: Volume 7
  2. Of a tree or shrub, trimmed in artistic shape.

Noun

topiary (countable and uncountable, plural topiaries)

  1. (uncountable) Art or practice of trimming shrubs or trees in artistic or ornamental shapes, e.g. of animals.
    • The palace garden might have had a semblance of coolness had there been any trees, but the tallest things were fanciful topiary, tortured into the shapes of running horses or bears performing tumblers’ tricks or the like.1994, Robert Jordan, Lord of Chaos, prologue
  2. (countable) A garden decorated with such art.
  3. (countable) One such shrub or tree.
    • We have topiaries for sale.

Forms of topiary

pluraltopiaries

Origin of topiary

From Latin topiarius (“of or relating to ornamental gardening; an ornamental garden, an ornamental gardener”), from Latin topia (“ornamental gardening, landscape painting”), from Ancient Greek τόπια (tópia, “artistic representation in which natural or artificial features of a place are used as the medium”), plural of Ancient Greek τόπιον (tópion, “field, landscape”), from τόπος (tópos, “place”). The adjective use dates to 1592, the noun use dates to 1908.

Words formed from topiary

Questions about topiary

What does topiary mean?
Topiary means of, or relating to art of topiaries.
What part of speech is topiary?
Topiary can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce topiary?
Topiary is pronounced /ˈtəʊpjəɹi/ (UK).

Words near topiary in the dictionary

  1. topiarian
  2. topiaried
  3. topiaries
  4. topiarist
  5. topiarists
  6. topiary
  7. topias
  8. topic
  9. Topic A
  10. topic map
  11. topic maps

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: topiary (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.

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Cite this entry: “topiary.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/topiary. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.