tree surgeon

Meaning

1. 1nouncountableBritish

   A person trained to look after trees by cutting branches, treating disease and safely removing dangerous ones.

   Grammar: Countable compound noun: a tree surgeon, two tree surgeons.

   Patterns

   • call a tree surgeon
   • hire a tree surgeon

   We called a tree surgeon to look at the cracked oak in the garden.

   The tree surgeon climbed up with ropes and a chainsaw.

   A qualified tree surgeon told us the beech needed pruning, not felling.

Word forms

Common combinations

hire a tree surgeon

They hired a tree surgeon to trim the overhanging branches.

qualified tree surgeon

Only a qualified tree surgeon should remove a large tree.

local tree surgeon

Ask your local tree surgeon for a free quote.

tree surgeon's report

The council asked for a tree surgeon's report on the storm damage.

call in a tree surgeon

After the storm, we had to call in a tree surgeon.

Synonyms and how they differ

arborist

Arborist is the standard word in American English and in professional certification, while tree surgeon is the everyday British term.

lumberjack

A lumberjack fells trees for timber in forests, while a tree surgeon cares for individual trees and removes them carefully in gardens or towns.

tree trimmer

A tree trimmer cuts branches back but may lack the training to diagnose disease, which a tree surgeon has.

Word family

arborist noun

American term for a tree specialist

arboriculture noun

the care and growing of trees

surgeon noun

a doctor who operates on patients

surgery noun

medical treatment by cutting, or the work done on a tree in a similar sense

Commonly confused: tree surgeon or forester? tree surgeon or surgeon?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “tree surgeon”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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