money tree

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Noun

money tree (plural money trees)

1. An imaginary tree from which money can be plucked. See money doesn't grow on trees.
   • 1967, Canadian Parliament, House of Commons Debates, volume 1, page 699:

     Maybe we could learn how to grow money trees.

   • 2004, Leo Furey, The Long Run, page 86:

     Money does not grow on trees. There is no money tree at Mount Kildare. If we had a money tree, boys, there would be no need of the bakery, no need of the raffle.

   • 2017, Question Time‎^[1] (television), spoken by Theresa May, via BBC:

     But there isn't a magic money tree that we can shake, that suddenly provides for everything that people want.

   • 2022 October 14, Tom McTague, “The Liz Truss Travesty Becomes Britain’s Humiliation”, in The Atlantic‎^[2]:

     Her rival […] argued for fiscal responsibility and warned that such a reckless policy would lead to a run on the pound and a calamitous series of mortgage-rate rises. Given this choice, the electorate for the Tory leadership […] preferred the magical money tree.

2. (commercial name) The Malabar chestnut, Pachira aquatica.
3. The jade plant, Crassula ovata.
4. The cocoa tree, Theobroma cacao.
5. (Chinese mythology) A kind of holy tree believed to bring money and good fortune.
6. (US) A miniature tree sculpture decorated with currency, often used as a raffle prize or a gift.
   • 1972, American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, American Association of Industrial Nurses, Occupational Health Nursing, Volume 20, page 26,

     NIAIN′s one money making project of the year, a money tree, was raffled off and won by Virginia Call of Bell and Howell.

   • 2001, Daniel J. Brown, Chapter 11: School Voluntarism, Social Capital, and Civil Society, Heinz-Dieter Meyer, William Lowe Boyd (editors), Education: Between States, Markets, and Civil Society: Comparative Perspectives, Lawrence Erlbaum, New Jersey, page 173,

     Donations from teachers and others were converted into coinage for a money tree that was raffled for $500.

   • 2003, North Carolina Folklore Society, North Carolina Folklore Journal, Volumes 50-53, page 23,

     Some families offer elaborate money trees, fashioned from decorated branches and streamers made of bills carefully pinned together […] .

7. (Australia) A cheap tree sculpture, decorated with currency, used as a raffle prize because it would be illegal to offer a cash prize.

Synonyms

• (an imaginary tree from which money can be plucked): magic money tree
• (jade plant): friendship tree, money plant
• (Malabar chestnut): Guiana chestnut, provision tree, saba nut

Hypernyms

• tree

Translations

Imaginary tree from which money can be plucked

• Danish: pengetræ n

Crassula ovata — see money plant

See also

• money doesn't grow on trees

References

• money tree on Wikipedia.Wikipedia