Word.ws English Dictionary

Yewtree

Yewtree proper noun: operation Yewtree.

Proper noun

Yewtree

  1. Operation Yewtree

Verb

Yewtree (third-person singular simple present Yewtrees, present participle Yewtreeing, simple past and past participle Yewtreed)

  1. (UK, slang) To investigate historic sexual offences as part of Operation Yewtree, or otherwise reveal or allege someone (especially a celebrity active in the 1970s and 1980s) to be a paedophile or abuser.
    • Having been born in the late 80s, I remember Saturday night TV through a child’s eyes. Unfortunately, most of the people who were on it have now either died, been Yewtreed, or gone nuts.2013 May 28, Bradley Steptoe, “I Tracked Down Mr Blobby’s Lair”, in VICE
    • Anyway, this is the last Yewtreed edition of the show until we get to Christmas, when both end-of-year specials are scuppered by their hosts, which is a bit inconvenient.2016 January 6, Steve Binnie, Feeling Like a Number One, Lulu.com, →ISBN, archived from the original on 02 Dec 2024, page 197

Adjective

Yewtree (comparative more Yewtree, superlative most Yewtree)

  1. (UK, slang) A paedophile, specifically one revealed by Operation Yewtree or a similar investigation.

Forms of Yewtree

Verb
third-person singular presentYewtrees
present participleYewtreeing
past participleYewtreed
pastYewtreed
Adjective
comparativemore Yewtree
superlativemost Yewtree

Origin of Yewtree

From Operation Yewtree, an investigation by British police forces into historic sex offences primarily linked to Jimmy Saville. The name Yewtree (from yew tree) was randomly selected from a list of neutral terms.

Questions about Yewtree

What does Yewtree mean?
Yewtree means operation Yewtree.
What part of speech is Yewtree?
Yewtree can be a proper noun, a verb or an adjective.

Words near Yewtree in the dictionary

  1. yewen
  2. yewie
  3. yewies
  4. yewlike
  5. yews
  6. Yewtree
  7. Yewtreed
  8. Yewtreeing
  9. Yewtrees
  10. yewy
  11. yewzh

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Yewtree (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: “Yewtree.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yewtree. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.