Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A structure of open latticework, especially one used as a support for vines and other climbing plants.
  • noun An arbor or arch made of latticework.
  • transitive verb To provide (an area) with a trellis.
  • transitive verb To cause or allow (a vine, for example) to grow on a trellis.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A structure of light cross-bars, as of wood, nailed together where they cross one another, or of thin ribbons of metal, or of wire imitating this.
  • noun A shed, canopy, summer-house, or the like composed, or partly composed, of trellis-work. Such buildings are utilized especially for the support of growing vines.
  • noun In heraldry, same as treille or lattice, 3.
  • To furnish with trellises or trellis-work; especially, to support or train on trellises: as, to trellis a vine.
  • To form into trellis-work; interlace; interweave.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A structure or frame of crossbarred work, or latticework, used for various purposes, as for screens or for supporting plants.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An outdoor garden frame which can be used for partitioning a common area.
  • noun An outdoor garden frame which can be used to grow vines or other climbing plants.
  • noun computing theory A kind of graph used in communication theory and encryption.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun latticework used to support climbing plants
  • verb train on a trellis, as of a vine

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English trelis, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *trilīcius, from Latin trilīx, trilīc-, woven with three threads : tri-, tri- + līcium, thread.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English trelis, from Anglo-Norman treleis, from Old French treille ("arbor"), from Latin trichila ("arbor", "summer house")

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Examples

  • The trellis is just on the edge of our lot, and the flowers would be planted in our neighbour's grass, and she's a bit particular about her grass.

    tickled... boutell 2007

  • Make sure that the stick or trellis is in firm and upright; then plant your peas, pretty thick, and not

    Gardening by Myself 1872

  • If you’d like to grow climbing vegetables in a small space, this simple DIY vegetable trellis is an excellent compliment to a small garden.

    Build An A-Frame Vegetable Trellis For Small Footprint Gardening | Lifehacker Australia 2010

  • As for covering up the electrical panel..... the trellis is a great idea.

    DesignerBlog Will 2007

  • Just there climbing over, and falling over a trellis was a trumpet vine.

    The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. Ellen Eddy Shaw

  • Just to the left of the kitchen wing is a little plot shut in by privet bushes and a trellis, which is where he says the _fine herbes_ are meant to grow.

    The House of Torchy Sewell Ford 1907

  • Beyond the trellis was a small, lonely garden; beyond the garden was a large, vague, woody space, where a few piles of old timber were disposed, and which he afterwards learned to be a relic of the shipbuilding era described to him by Doctor Prance; and still beyond this again was the charming lake-like estuary he had already admired.

    The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) Henry James 1879

  • I begin to know what the joy of the grape-vine is in running up the trellis, which is similar to that of the squirrel in running up a tree.

    My Summer in a Garden Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • I begin to know what the joy of the grape-vine is in running up the trellis, which is similar to that of the squirrel in running up a tree.

    The Complete Project Gutenberg Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • The vine of Christian ministry is people; the trellis is the various organizational structures that exist for the health of the vine.

    Desiring God Blog 2010

Comments

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  • lattice

    April 6, 2009