---
title: Arborist Glossary | Tree Terms in Plain English
url: https://battleborntreeservice.com/glossary/
business: Battle Born Tree Service
address: 6301 US Highway 50 East, Carson City, NV 89701
phone: 775.232.8243
hours: Office Monday-Friday 8:30 am-5:00 pm; phones answered seven days a week; 24-hour emergency service
credentials: ISA Certified Arborist WE-11728A on staff; Nevada Business License # 20131580674; fully insured
type: Tree service (removal, crane work, pruning, stump grinding, defensible space, snow removal, firewood)
---

- [Home](https://battleborntreeservice.com/)
- Arborist glossary

# Arborist glossary

This arborist glossary explains more than 60 terms you are likely to see on a tree service estimate or hear from an arborist, in plain English, from DBH and crown reduction to ladder fuels and mastication.

The terms cover pruning, removal, crane work, stumps and roots, fire and land clearing, Lake Tahoe permits, and firewood. If a word on your estimate is not here, ask the arborist. Every estimate should be easy to understand.

## Terms, A to Z

- **811:** The national call-before-you-dig number. Underground utilities are marked before any digging, which includes grinding a stump below grade.
- **ANSI A300:** The American National Standards for tree care work, including pruning. It is the standard the industry follows, and it does not accept topping as pruning.
- **ANSI Z133:** The American National Standard for safety in tree work, covering climbing, rigging, aerial lifts, chippers and work near power lines.
- **Arborist:** A person trained in the care of individual trees. An ISA Certified Arborist has passed the International Society of Arboriculture's exam and keeps the credential current with continuing education.
- **Boom truck:** A truck with an extending boom and a bucket that lifts an arborist into the crown. Also called a bucket truck or aerial lift. Ours is a 75-foot Altec GMC.
- **Branch collar:** The slightly swollen ring where a branch joins the trunk. A correct pruning cut is made just outside it so the wound can close.
- **Brush mowing:** Cutting brush and tall weeds with a heavy mower, often for fire fuel reduction on open lots.
- **Cabling and bracing:** Installing cables or rods in a tree to support weak unions or heavy limbs.
- **Canopy:** The combined crowns of the trees over a yard, street or lot. Also used for the leafy part of a single tree.
- **Cavity:** A hollow in a trunk or limb where decayed wood has gone.
- **Chipper:** The machine that turns limbs and brush into wood chips, usually towed behind the chip truck.
- **Climber:** The crew member who works in the tree on ropes and a harness, making the cuts and attaching the crane or the rigging.
- **Codominant stems:** Two or more trunks of about the same size growing from one fork. The union between them is often weak.
- **Conifer:** A cone-bearing tree, usually evergreen with needles or scales, such as a pine, fir, spruce, cedar or juniper.
- **Conk:** The shelf-like fruiting body of a wood decay fungus on a trunk or at the base of a tree. It is a sign of decay inside.
- **Cord:** The standard measure of firewood: 128 cubic feet of stacked wood, such as a stack 4 feet high, 4 feet deep and 8 feet long. See how big a cord is .
- **Crane-assisted removal:** Removing a tree in sections that a crane lifts up and away to a drop zone, instead of lowering each piece on ropes. See how we do it .
- **Crown:** The branches and foliage of a tree, above the trunk.
- **Crown cleaning:** Pruning out dead, dying, broken and rubbing branches without changing the size or shape of the tree.
- **Crown raising:** Removing the lowest branches for clearance over a roof, driveway, walk or street. Also called limbing up.
- **Crown reduction:** Shortening a tree's height or spread by cutting back to side branches large enough to take over. It is not topping.
- **Crown thinning:** Removing selected branches through the crown to reduce weight and wind load while keeping the tree's shape.
- **DBH (diameter at breast height):** The diameter of a trunk measured 4.5 feet above the ground. Wrap a tape around the trunk and divide by 3.14. Tahoe permit rules are written in DBH.
- **Dead wooding:** Removing dead, dying and broken branches from a tree.
- **Decay:** Wood breaking down from fungi inside a trunk, limb or root. It can be hidden behind sound-looking bark, which is why an arborist looks for cavities, conks and cracks.
- **Deciduous:** A tree that drops its leaves each fall, such as a cottonwood, maple, elm or ash.
- **Defensible space:** The area around a building where plants and other fuels are managed to slow a wildfire. The Living With Fire guide divides it into Zone 0 (0 to 5 feet), Zone 1 (5 to 30 feet) and Zone 2 (30 to 100 feet).
- **Dieback:** Branches dying from the tips inward, often from drought stress, root damage or disease.
- **Dormant season:** The part of the year when a tree is not actively growing. Most deciduous trees are pruned in late winter, while dormant.
- **Drip line:** The line on the ground under the outer edge of a tree's branches.
- **Drop zone:** The cleared area where the crane sets down each section of a tree to be cut up and loaded.
- **Fire mitigation:** Assessing a property's specific fire risks and removing fire fuel from around it to create a defensible zone.
- **Flush cut:** A cut made tight against the trunk that removes the branch collar. It leaves a larger wound that closes poorly.
- **Girdling root:** A root that circles the base of the trunk and squeezes it as both grow.
- **Hardiness zone:** A USDA map zone based on the average coldest winter temperature. Our service area runs from zone 6b to zone 7b on the 2023 map.
- **Heading cut:** A cut that shortens a branch to a bud or a small twig rather than to a side branch. Repeated heading cuts on large limbs are topping.
- **Included bark:** Bark trapped inside a tight fork between two stems. It keeps the wood from joining and is a common place for a tree to split.
- **ISA Certified Arborist:** A credential issued by the International Society of Arboriculture to a person, not a company. Each holder has a certificate number, such as WE-11728A, that can be checked with the ISA. See what the credential means .
- **Ladder fuels:** Low branches, shrubs and small trees that let a ground fire climb into the crowns of larger trees.
- **Lateral:** A side branch. A proper reduction cut shortens a limb back to a lateral big enough to take over.
- **Leader:** The main upright stem at the top of a tree.
- **Lean:** The angle of a trunk away from vertical. A long-standing lean with a curved top is different from a new lean with lifting soil, which needs to be looked at right away.
- **Lot clearing:** Removing trees, brush and debris from a parcel, for building, access or fire safety.
- **Mastication:** Grinding standing brush and small trees into chips with a machine-mounted cutting head, leaving the chips on the ground.
- **Outriggers:** The legs a crane or boom truck extends to steady itself before lifting.
- **Rigging:** The ropes, slings and hardware used to lower cut pieces of a tree under control.
- **Right-of-way:** The strip of public land along a street, which often includes the area between the sidewalk and the curb. In Reno, work on trees in the City right-of-way needs a Tree Work Permit and a Certified Arborist.
- **Root barrier:** A panel set in the soil to steer roots away from pavement, pipes or foundations.
- **Root flare:** The base of the trunk where it widens into the main roots. It should be visible at the soil line.
- **Seasoned firewood:** Firewood that has been split and dried long enough to burn cleanly. Freshly cut wood is called green.
- **Shaping:** Light pruning to keep a tree or shrub in a tidy, balanced form.
- **Skid steer:** A compact wheeled loader that turns by skidding its wheels. Used for moving material, grading and snow.
- **Slash:** The limbs, tops and brush left over from cutting. It is chipped, masticated or hauled so it does not become fuel.
- **Snag:** A standing dead tree.
- **Structural pruning:** Pruning a young tree so it grows one strong central trunk and well-spaced branches. It is the usual pruning for young trees.
- **Stub:** A length of branch left sticking out past the collar after a poor cut. Stubs die back and invite decay.
- **Stump grinding:** Grinding a stump below the surface with a machine so the area can be replanted or covered.
- **Stump removal:** Taking out a stump. Most often done by grinding. Digging out the whole stump and root ball is a bigger job. See grinding versus full removal .
- **Topping:** Cutting the top of a tree back to stubs. It weakens the tree and is not accepted pruning practice under the ANSI A300 standard. See why topping is not pruning .
- **Track loader:** A compact loader on rubber tracks, such as our Bobcat T870. It carries logs, loads trucks and runs attachments like the masticating head.
- **TRPA:** The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. In the Tahoe Basin it requires a permit to remove a live tree over 14 inches DBH, or over 6 inches DBH between the house and the lake on lakeshore lots.
- **Utility and structure clearance:** Pruning branches back from buildings, roofs and service lines.
- **Water sprouts and suckers:** Fast, weakly attached shoots. Water sprouts grow from limbs, often after hard pruning or topping. Suckers grow from the roots or the base of the trunk.
- **Widow-maker:** A broken limb hanging in a tree that can fall without warning. Also called a hanger.
- **Wildland-urban interface (WUI):** Neighborhoods and homes that are in or next to wildland vegetation.
- **Windthrow:** A tree blown over at the roots, with the root plate lifted out of the ground.
- **Wood chips:** What the chipper makes from limbs and brush. Used as mulch away from the house, never in Zone 0.
- **Zone 0:** The ember-resistant zone, 0 to 5 feet from the house. The Living With Fire guide says to remove woodpiles, combustible mulch, and junipers and other high-fire-hazard plants from it.
- **Zone 1:** The lean, clean and green zone, 5 to 30 feet from the house in the Living With Fire guide.
- **Zone 2:** The reduced fuel zone, 30 to 100 feet from the house in the Living With Fire guide, where dead vegetation and ladder fuels are removed.

### Sources

- [University of Nevada, Reno Extension: Living With Fire Defensible Space Guide (SP-23-07)](https://extension.unr.edu/publication.aspx?PubID=5522) (read October 1, 2026)
- [Tahoe Regional Planning Agency: Trees and Defensible Space](https://www.trpa.gov/trees-and-defensible-space/) (read October 1, 2026)
- [Truckee Meadows Water Authority: Local Tree Ordinances](https://tmwa.com/article/local-tree-ordinances/) (read October 1, 2026)
- [USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023](https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/) (retrieved October 1, 2026)

### Talk to the office

[775.232.8243](tel:775.232.8243)

| Monday to Friday | 8:30 am - 5:00 pm |
|---|---|
| Saturday and Sunday | Office closed, phones answered |

Phones answered seven days a week. 24-hour emergency service.

[Free estimate](#quote)