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Glite Dictionary
white birch

white birch

1 4.9
A tree with pale bark and thin hanging branches often found in Europe
  • noun
  • UK
translation icon : abeto blanco
  • Well, I know there's some white birch here.
  • white birch tree
  • stand of white birch

Examples

  • Where we, in our rented yard, have scrub pine and a slippery floor of needles, the Morris' trees are white birch and the grass is like a putting green.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • The world has been turned upside down, she tells him as she points out a stand of white birch whose leafless trunks and branches stretch up out of the snow like frosty roots into the blue sky.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • If there were a moon, it would be shining on the white birch.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • approaching the line of white birches,

    Fiction book (1996)

  • The curling bark of the white birch.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • Imperceptibly, we move closer and start to see shapes blocking out part of the white birch.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • The paper-white birch trunks add texture to images.

    Academic text (2007)

  • Stopping in the shadow of a white birch, he pulled his shirt over his head and wiped the sweat from his face and chest.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • There were lures everywhere, gaudy and sharp, some in the ferns, some up in the white birches, others hanging festively off the pines.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • As we hiked through the forest, we admired the tall white birch trees with their striking white bark.

Synonyms

birch
vswhite birch
19 1.7

A tree with thin, peeling bark and light wood

is a particular species with dull pale bark and slightly drooping branches
birch tree
vswhite birch
3 2.1

A tree with thin white bark that peels and slender branches

is a specific European species with dull pale bark and hairy branches
Betula pendula
vswhite birch
  • Specialized
9.2

A birch tree with white peeling bark and drooping branches

has dull pale bark rather than bright silvery peeling bark
silver birch
vswhite birch
4.5

A tree with silvery white peeling bark and drooping branches

has dull pale bark rather than bright silvery peeling bark
common birch
vswhite birch
  • UK
3.8

A tree with silvery white bark that peels in thin papery layers and drooping branches

has dull pale bark rather than bright silvery peeling bark
European white birch
vswhite birch
  • UK
6.3

A tree with silvery white peeling bark and drooping branches

has dull pale bark rather than bright silvery peeling bark

Surface Forms

white birch singular
white birches plural

Morphology

white + birch

The noun phrase simply combines the adjective 'white' with the noun 'birch' to denote a birch tree that is white, so the meaning is directly derivable from the constituents. This is a literal adjective + noun subtype naming pattern (no idiomatic or metaphorical shift) and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words will understand it.

Etymology

White birch comes from a simple picture: a birch tree with very pale, almost white bark that often peels in thin layers. So the name just describes this tree's light bark and graceful branches.