ˈtree-top, tree top
a. The top of a tree; the uppermost branches of a tree.
| 1530 Palsgr. 233/1 Housetoppe or treetoppe. 1620 Middleton Chaste Maid iii. iii, Perch at tree-top, And shake the golden fruit into hir lap. 1796 Mother Goose's Melody 15 Hush-a-by, baby On the tree top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock. 1821 Clare Vill. Minstr., etc. (1823) I. 73 The sun each tree top mounted o'er. 1904 R. Bridges Demeter 318 As the light clouds fly O'er the tree-tops high. |
b. attrib. passing into adj. Of or pertaining to tree-tops; in the tops of trees. Also fig.
| 1896 R. L. Stevenson In South Seas iii. iii. 246 The folk of the town streamed by us intermittingly... In the first grey of the morning, and again late in the afternoon, these would straggle past about their tree-top business..and vanish from the face of earth. 1945 New Yorker 10 Feb. 23/3 Bombers went to critical missions, at tree-top level. 1961 Sunday Express 26 Feb. 5/3 A tree-top hotel..in the Aberdare Mountains. 1977 Daily Mail 24 Sept. 15/6 One man with a few machines can run a dawn-to-dusk radio station. Britain's few fugitive tree-top pirates do the same on the odd Sunday afternoon. 1979 P. Niesewand Member of Club xxi. 165 Colonel Winter heard the jets flash over; just above tree-top height. |