Word Study
thuja
CIDE DICTIONARY
thuja, n. [NL., from Gr. an African tree with sweet-smelling wood.].
A genus of evergreen trees, thickly branched, remarkable for the distichous arrangement of their branches, and having scalelike, closely imbricated, or compressed leaves. [1913 Webster]
" Thuja occidentalis is the Arbor vitæ of the Eastern and Northern United States. Thuja gigantea of North-waetern America is a very large tree, there called red cedar , and canoe cedar , and furnishes a useful timber." [1913 Webster]
OXFORD DICTIONARY
thuja, n. (also thuya) any evergreen coniferous tree of the genus Thuja, with small leaves closely pressed to the branches; arbor vitae.
Etymology
mod.L f. Gk thuia, an Afr. tree
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