Glossary
Arborist Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential arborist terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key arborist vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in arborist training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Aerial rescue
- Rescuing an injured climber.
- Branch collar
- The swelling at a branch’s base.
- Codominant stems
- Two competing trunks.
- Crown
- The upper part of a tree.
- Crown thinning
- Removing branches to reduce density.
- Deadwood
- Dead branches.
- Drop zone
- The area where limbs fall.
- Hinge
- Wood left to guide a falling tree.
- Line clearance
- Pruning near power lines.
- Minimum approach distance
- Safe distance from lines.
- Notch
- The cut that directs a tree’s fall.
- Rigging
- Ropes and hardware to lower limbs.
- Stump grinding
- Removing stumps mechanically.
- Tie-in point
- Where a climber anchors.
- Topping
- Harmful cutting of tree tops.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Arborist practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Arborist training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.