Word.ws English Dictionary

Tyburn tree

Tyburn tree proper noun: a gallows, situated at Tyburn, Middlesex, (present-day Greater London), that was used for public hangings from medieval times until 1783 (when executions were moved to Newgate Prison).

tyburn tree: a gallows, situated at Tyburn, Middlesex, (present-day Greater London), that was used for public...
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Proper noun (1)

Tyburn tree

  1. (historical) A gallows, situated at Tyburn, Middlesex, (present-day Greater London), that was used for public hangings from medieval times until 1783 (when executions were moved to Newgate Prison).
    • If he entered London by Oxford-street,Tyburn tree would certainly attract his attention, especially when ten or twelve criminals were about to suffer in the presence of a crowd of people gathered round it, indulging themselves in the sports and pastimes usual on such occasions.1889, G. B. Barton, History of New South Wales from the Records, Volume 1: Governor Phillip, 1783-1789, page 221
    • None can exactly fix the place of Tyburn Tree. […] Tyburn tree stood within a gunshot to the north-west of the Marble Arch.1896, Francis Watt, Tyburn Tree, W. E. Henley (editor), The New Review, Volume 15, William Heinemann, page 692

Noun

Tyburn tree (plural Tyburn trees)

  1. (broadly, obsolete) A gallows.
    • The wild Olive, and the Fig, were the Tyburn-trees of the Athenians.1840, James W. Peppercorns (translator), Moses Maimonides, The Laws of the Hebrews, Relating to the Poor and the Stranger, Pelham Richardson, page civ
    • But Hogarth should have converted the ship's masts themselves into Tyburn-trees, and thus, with the ocean for a background, closed the career of his hero.1853, Herman Melville, White Jacket: Or, The World in a Man-of-War, Volume 2, Richard Bentley, page 276

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Tyburn Tree

Tyburn Tree

  1. Alternative letter-case form of Tyburn tree.

Synonyms of Tyburn tree

Forms of Tyburn tree

Proper noun
alternative formTyburn Tree
alternative formTyburn-tree
Noun
pluralTyburn trees

Origin of Tyburn tree

So called because at one time, criminals were executed by being hung from elm trees along the banks of the Tyburn Brook (historically, often confused with the nearby Tyburn River), a tributary stream which ran through Hyde Park.

Questions about Tyburn tree

What does Tyburn tree mean?
Tyburn tree means a gallows, situated at Tyburn, Middlesex, (present-day Greater London), that was used for public hangings from medieval times until 1783 (when executions were moved to Newgate Prison).
What part of speech is Tyburn tree?
Tyburn tree can be a proper noun or a noun.

Words near Tyburn tree in the dictionary

  1. Tyburn gallows
  2. Tyburn ticket
  3. Tyburn tickets
  4. Tyburn tippet
  5. Tyburn tippets
  6. Tyburn tree
  7. Tyburn trees
  8. Tyburn-tree
  9. Tyburnia
  10. Tyburski
  11. Tyburskis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Tyburn tree (page history and authors); Tyburn Tree (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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