California redwood
- noun
- /ˌkælɪˈfɔrnjə ˈrɛdˌwʊd/
- US
:
secuoya de California
- The bark of a California redwood is thick and resistant to fire, which helps it survive in its natural habitat.
- old-growth California redwoods
Examples
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Hiking through the forest, we marveled at the majestic California redwoods towering above us.
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We're gonna go see it, Find ourselves some California redwoods, the trees that are as big around as the car.
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They're California redwood, over a hundred years old.
Fiction book (2002) -
At the same time that Maxxam was attempting to bust the labor unions at Kaiser-Aluminum, it was cutting down some of the last old-growth California redwoods.
Academic text (2001) -
The California redwood is the tallest tree species in the world, reaching heights over 350 feet.
Synonyms
28
3.6
A very tall evergreen tree from California with reddish bark that can live for many years
1
6.3
A very tall evergreen tree that grows near the Pacific coast of California and Oregon
A very tall evergreen tree that grows on the west coast of the United States called the coast redwood
How Tall
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining the place-name 'California' with 'redwood' (a type of tree): it denotes the redwood tree associated with California. This proper noun + noun descriptive pattern is common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the intended referent.
Etymology
California redwood comes from where the tree grows and its colour: people in California noticed the tree's reddish-brown bark and called it red wood. So, the name now means a very tall evergreen 'tree' that lives on the coast of California and nearby Oregon.