subs. (old).—A gallows: also SUBSTANTIAL TREE, FATAL TREE, ‘TREE that bears fruit all the year round,’ the TREE with three corners, etc.; spec. (Biblical and colloquial) = the Cross. See TRIPLE-TREE and TYBURN-TREE.
1611. Bible, Acts x. 39. Whom they slew and hanged on a TREE.
d. 1704. T. BROWN, Works i. 70. Tho’ ’twas thy Luck to cheat the FATAL TREE.
1809. MALKIN, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 217. Tell us rather to wait for you under a more SUBSTANTIAL TREE.
1850. WHITTIER, Kathleen.
| But give to me your daughter dear, | |
| And by the HOLY TREE, | |
| Be she on sea or on the land, | |
| I’ll bring her back to thee. |
Verb.—To perplex, get at one’s mercy, put in a fix, drive to the end of one’s resources. Whence, TREED (or UP A TREE) = cornered, obliged to surrender, DONE FOR (q.v.).
1847–8. THACKERAY, Vanity Fair, xxxiv. The dreadful predicament in which he found himself, in a house full of old women…. ‘Reglarly UP A TREE, by jingo!’
1859. H. KINGSLEY, Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn, v. You are TREED, and can’t help yourself.
PHRASES.—AT THE TOP OF THE TREE (see TOP); TO TREE ONESELF (American) = to conceal oneself, hide; LAME AS A TREE = very lame; TO BARK UP THE WRONG TREE (see BARK); ‘Put not the hand between the bark and the TREE’ = ‘Meddle not in family matters’: also BETWEEN BARK AND TREE (or WOOD) = a well-adjusted bargain.
1562. HEYWOOD, Proverbs and Epigrams, 67.
| It were a folly for me, | |
| To put my hand BETWEENE THE BARKE AND THE TREE … | |
| Betweene you. |
1600. HOLLAND, Livy, xxxvi. v. 921. To deale roundly and simply with no side, but to go BETWEEN THE BARK AND THE TREE.
1642. ROGERS, Naaman the Syrian, 303. So audacious as to go BETWEENE BARKE AND TREE, breeding suspitions … betweene man and wife.
1804. EDGEWORTH, The Modern Griselda [Works (1832), v. 299]. An instigator of quarrels between man and wife, or, according to the plebeian but expressive apophthegm, one who would come BETWEEN THE BARK AND THE TREE.
1857. T. HUGHES, Tom Brown’s School-days, I. vii. ‘What a pull,’ said he, ‘that it’s lie-in-bed, for I shall be as LAME AS A TREE, I think.’
Adj. (old).—Three: e.g., TREEWINS = threepence; TREE-MOON = three months’ imprisonment, etc. (GROSE): see TRAY.
