Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a coffin.

1952

Des Moines Trib. )IA) 3 Nov. 13/8: A ‘tree suit’ is a coffin.

1. to be hanged.

1867		W.H. Dixon New America I 132: Gone up, in the slang of Denver, means gone up a tree [...]. In plain English, the man is said to have been hung [DA].
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

2. (Aus.) to fall off one’s horse.

1953

Baker Aus. Speaks.

mad, eccentric.

1992		M. Coleman Fatty 139: ‘Now I know how those rock stars must feel. Everyone was off their trees, anything could have happened’.
1997		N. Barlay Curvy Lovebox 55: You’re off y’tree Nood.
2000		Indep. Rev. 14 Aug. 7: My friends thought I was mad, completely off my tree.
2003		N. Griffiths Stump 56: Look at Lenny Reece, fuckin balloonhead [...] off his fuckin tree.
2006		P. Shannon Davey Darling 63: Mum stayed sitting at the table, looking like she was going off her tree but doing the best to disguise it.

1. crazy, insane; very angry.

1964		in Current Sl. (1967) I:4 4/2: Out of his tree, adj. Insane.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 166: Out of your tree, go Go wild.
1968		‘Hy Lit’ Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 15: few marbles missing – Ain’t wrapped to [sic] tight; cat fell out of his tree; flipped out of his nut; crazy.
1976		P. Conroy Great Santini (1977) 382: What in hell are you calling me for at happy hour, Lilian. Have you gone out of your bush?
1976		R. Price Blood Brothers 35: You’re really outta your tree, you know that?
1981		(con. 1963) P. Conroy Lords of Discipline 140: I’ve been insane for so long [...] psychotically out of my fucking tree.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 31: [T]he dapper little bloke was fair dinkum out of his tree.
1999		Indep. Rev. 28 June 4: Does this suggest [...] Any 14-year-old who prefers Twiggy to Twigs and Twiglets isn’t necessarily out of their tree?
2002		S. Maloney Something Fishy (2006) 217: You’re out of your fucken tree, man.
2009		L. McIlvanney All the Colours 190: ‘Wolfe’s a fucking madman, I know. But this time he means it. He’s out his fucking tree’.

2. (also off one’s tree) totally intoxicated by drugs.

1991		R. Doyle Van (1998) 439: I think she’s ou’ of her tree half the time [...] She looks doped.
2000		N. Barlay Crumple Zone 41: I will never tell him how off my tree I get.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 384: Colm comes to-a door, staggerin, clearly out uv is tree.
2015		P. Doyle (con. 1969-1973) Big Whatever 13: I was out of my goddamned tree, dig?

3. utterly bored.

2005

P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 31: I’m bored out of my tree.

a fool, a peasant.

1992

K. Lette Llama Parlour 50: The general public are referred to as ‘knuckle-draggers’, ‘mouth-breathers’ and ‘tree-dwellers.’.

(US campus) an environmentalist; thus tree-hugging adj.

1965		Appleton Post-Crescent (WI) 10 Sept. 1/4–5: The battle was between the tree huggers and the city. The city won. Conservationist Stuart Chase describes the holding action on the lakefront Thursday: They started up their chain saws and, with blades whirring, charged at us and cut the trees off right on top of us [etc.].
1979		Casper Star Trib. (WY) 28 Nov. 23/3: Environmentalists, who she called ‘tree-huggers’.
1988		L.A. Times 10 Apr. 14/1: [headline] Tree Huggers Take to Sweden’s Forests to Fight.
1996		A. Close Official and Doubtful 182: A professional leech-preserver, that’s what the electorate have put their crosses by. A tree hugger.
2000		J. Hawes Dead Long Enough 20: You want to hang out with tree-hugging twats who think mankind is the skin-disease of the earth?
2004		C. Hiaasen Skinny Dip 127: He was glad to get those goddamn tree-huggers off his case.
2006		G. Malkani Londonstani (2007) 17: A cycle-riding, tree-huggin, skint hippie.
2007		Guardian G2 3 May 6: For every hugger there is a hater, determined to get rid of trees.
2010		Eve. Standard 29 Nov. 17/2: [headline] Tree-huggers on the march [...] Green activists are protesting over the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 232: His tree-shagging yuppie brother.
2013		N. Knight ‘Not Even a Mouse’ in ThugLit Nov.-Dec. [ebook] Felt like a tree fucker—hadn't smoked [cannabis] since high school.
2014		R. Hart ‘Confessions of a Taco truck Owner’ in ThugLit July [ebook] It couldn't be those whale-hugging hippies from the vegan cupcake truck.
2017		Arizona Republic 28 June A5/1: [headline] Utah blames ‘tree huggers’ for fire.

(US prison) a rapist or sexual molester, thus adj. tree-jumping.

1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 216: tree jumper, n. – a man convicted of raping or molesting a child.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 37: Tree Jumper [...] An inmate who is in prison for rape.
2000		Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Tree Jumper: (1) Rapist. (2) Someone convicted of a sex crime which involves a minor. Also, ‘tree chopper.’ (CA).
2005		R. Cea No Lights, No Sirens 245: ‘Yeah, you’re definitely a booty bandit, all you tree-jumping rapists are’.

(US black) a coffin.

1944

‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.

(S.Afr. drugs) marijuana.

1949		H.C. Bosman Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 29: They referred to it as ‘boom.’ I wanted to know why. They said, well, you know, ‘boom’ is the Afrikaans word for a tree. [...] Then they said it meant tree of knowledge. They said that if you smoked dagga you knew everything that there was in the world, and even a lot that wasn’t. [Ibid.] 30: ‘The tree of knowledge’, the blue coat would repeat, ‘Give me a few pulls every morning with the mealie-pap and I’ll tell the Governor he can go bugger himself.’.
c.1949		H.C. Bosman Willemsdorp (1981) I 491: You can’ pinch a kafir [...] as you don’t find dagga in his back pocket. Nellie Pope, they calls it. Or the tree of knowledge.
1952		Drum (Johannesburg) Sept. 12: It is known in the slang as [...] ‘tree of knowledge’ [DSAE].

the gallows.

1640		H. Mill Nights Search I 54: What’s murther, but a crime Which I have made almost as old as time? Spend upon whores, and drink what thou do’st get, Feare not the crooked tree.
1890s		W.E. Henley Carmen Patibulare n.p.: Tree, old tree of the triple crook, And the Rope of the Black Election [F&H].

the gallows.

1630		J. Taylor ‘Description of Tyburne’ in Works (1869) II 134: I haue heard sundry men oft times dispute / Of trees, that in one yeere will twice bere fruit. / But if a man note Tyburne, ’will appeare, / That that’s a tree that beares twelue times a yeare.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 183: To the tree that bears fruit all the year round, and yet has neither bark nor branch.

see three-cornered tree under three adj.

the very best, outstanding.

1819

P. Egan Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 21: [T]o be a top-of-the-tree buck requires something more than the furnishing hand of a tailor, or the assistance of a groom.

see separate entries.