"tree hugger" meaning in English

See tree hugger in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-tree hugger.ogg [Australia] Forms: tree huggers [plural]
Etymology: Compound of tree + hugger. Popularized after the 1970's Chipko movement in India, who resorted to actual group hugging of trees in order to prevent deforestation. Tommy James claims that his 1971 song "Draggin' the Line" popularized the phrase. https://americansongwriter.com/meaning-behind-tommy-james-draggin-the-line/ Etymology templates: {{com|en|tree|hugger}} tree + hugger Head templates: {{en-noun}} tree hugger (plural tree huggers)
  1. (slang, derogatory) An environmental campaigner, especially one who aims to restrict logging and especially one who uses dramatic, attention-grabbing methods of obstruction. Tags: derogatory, slang Categories (topical): People Translations (derogatory term for environmental campaigner, anti-logging protester): ituhippi (Finnish), puunhalaaja (Finnish), Baumschmuser [masculine] (German), Baumschmuserin [feminine] (German), trädkramare (Swedish)
    Sense id: en-tree_hugger-en-noun-JlccVszk Disambiguation of People: 45 55 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 91 9 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 93 7 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 91 9 Disambiguation of 'derogatory term for environmental campaigner, anti-logging protester': 88 12
  2. (slang) A hippie. Tags: slang Categories (topical): People
    Sense id: en-tree_hugger-en-noun-cLPp8iXD Disambiguation of People: 45 55
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: eagle freak, greeniac, lentil-weaver, posy sniffer, prairie fairy, yoghurt-knitter, treehugger, tree-hugger

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for tree hugger meaning in English (5.1kB)

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      "args": {
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  "etymology_text": "Compound of tree + hugger. Popularized after the 1970's Chipko movement in India, who resorted to actual group hugging of trees in order to prevent deforestation. Tommy James claims that his 1971 song \"Draggin' the Line\" popularized the phrase. https://americansongwriter.com/meaning-behind-tommy-james-draggin-the-line/",
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          "text": "Coordinate term: bunny hugger"
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        {
          "ref": "1999, Mother Jones Magazine (Mar–Apr 1999, page 64)",
          "text": "Animal liberationists like Rosmarino resented the tree huggers' insensitivity to animals and reluctance to risk jail time, while more mainstream environmentalists like AFR's Jeff Berman disagreed with the bunny huggers' wacky morality and in-your-face tactics. The two groups' differences were in full view as they teamed up to parade through Vail last winter."
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        "(slang, derogatory) An environmental campaigner, especially one who aims to restrict logging and especially one who uses dramatic, attention-grabbing methods of obstruction."
      ],
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      "translations": [
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          "_dis1": "88 12",
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          "code": "de",
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        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "sv",
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          "sense": "derogatory term for environmental campaigner, anti-logging protester",
          "word": "trädkramare"
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        {
          "ref": "2005, Erin Bell, Miss Diagnosed: Unraveling Chronic Stress",
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          "text": "Until fairly recently, even the idea of a MBS connection was dismissed by Western medicine as the province of New Age tree huggers, so it had very little mainstream credibility.",
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    {
      "word": "posy sniffer"
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    {
      "word": "prairie fairy"
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      "word": "yoghurt-knitter"
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    {
      "word": "treehugger"
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      "word": "tree-hugger"
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "derogatory term for environmental campaigner, anti-logging protester",
      "word": "ituhippi"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "derogatory term for environmental campaigner, anti-logging protester",
      "word": "puunhalaaja"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
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      "sense": "derogatory term for environmental campaigner, anti-logging protester",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "Baumschmuser"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "derogatory term for environmental campaigner, anti-logging protester",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "Baumschmuserin"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "derogatory term for environmental campaigner, anti-logging protester",
      "word": "trädkramare"
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  "word": "tree hugger"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.