arboricide meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

arboricide

noun

Etymology From Latin arbor + English -icide.

Any herbicide intended to kill trees or shrubs.

Over a large area, trees of no commercial value such as figs, especially the so-called ‘strangling’ (epiphytic) varieties, together with Cynometra, Celtis spp. and Lasiodiscus were treated with a potent arboricide containing 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D dissolved in diesel oil.2005, Vernon Reynolds, The Chimpanzees of the Budongo Forest: Ecology, Behaviour, and Conservation, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 16:

Uncommon The killing of a tree.

President Hayes spoke of the gigantic trees which he had seen in California, one of which was so large that he and seven other persons rode into the hollow of its trunk. He had heard of the crime of arboricide, and agreed with Mr. Muzzey that it deserves punishment.1882, “Meeting for Discussion. Ornamental Arboriculture.”, in Transactions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, for the Year 1882, part I, Boston, Mass.: […] the Society, page 16:
Irresolutely she threaded her way among the motley crowd on the hot, unshaded platform of the station, pausing, because it seemed to bar her way, before the section of Pueblo’s king of cottonwoods, which advertising ingenuity has erected there,—fit monument, Donald had once said, for a city’s crime of arboricide.1890 June, Mary E. Stickney, “Circumstantial Evidence. A Novel.”, in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, Philadelphia, Pa.: J. B. Lippincott Company, chapter VI, page 798:

4 more examples

The salaried tree killer for the state of Nebraska has been at work about the Soldiers’ Home at Milford. He is guilty of arboricide in the first degree.1899, The Conservative, page 1:
Under cover of the night they pulled up the saplings, tore down the branches, and maimed the trunks, and often in the morning the dismayed laird saw that in the darkness the labours and pride of years had been ruthlessly ruined. […] The barons of regality might issue their threats, the statutes of the State might renew and increase their penalties; but this crime of arboricide was distressingly frequent, to the discouragement of “improvers.”1899, Henry Grey Graham, “The Land and the People, 1700-1750”, in The Social Life of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century, volume I, London: Adam and Charles Black, page 199:
When his [Winston Churchill’s] wife [Clementine] had chopped down a favorite elm tree at Chartwell, Churchill said to her, “Clemmie, you are guilty of arboricide!”1994, James C. Humes, The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill: A Treasury of More than 1,000 Quotations and Anecdotes, HarperPerennial, published 1995, →ISBN, page 140:
As the leaves begin to fall from the tree, they accuse the man of being anti-arboreal and an enemy of nature, a claim that he adamantly denies. More arguing ensues and in his characteristically brilliant manner, James Coyle forces the conversation to the point where the man has been accused, tried, and found guilty of arboricide.2008, Kenny G, “May We Graft Chicken Wings to Your Head In The Interest of Aviation?: The insane (but hilarious) minds of Coyle & Sharpe”, in Dave the Spazz [pseudonym; Dave Abramson], editor, The Best of LCD: The Art and Writing of WFMU, Princeton Architectural Press, →ISBN, page 90:

Related terms: arboricidal