overstory

[ oh-ver-stawr-ee, -stohr-ee ]

noun

, plural o·ver·sto·ries.

1. the uppermost layer of foliage in a forest, forming the canopy.

Word History and Origins

Origin of overstory¹

1480–90, for an earlier sense; 1955–60 for current sense; over- + story ²

Example Sentences

Powers’s previous novel, The Overstory, won a Pulitzer Prize, and now Bewilderment has been longlisted for the National Book Award and shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

From Outside Online

On many parts of tribal land, most of the trees in the overstory survived.

From Popular-Science

Comparisons to The Overstory are inevitable, both because that book was enormously successful and influential, and because it was also a call to action for the health of our planet.

From Outside Online

Richard Powers’ 2018 novel The Overstory, which won that year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, followed decades of the MacArthur Fellow’s work investigating the intersections of culture, the environment, science and technology.

From Time

The dominant and codominant plants in the overstory (trees or shrubs) were noted at each station.

From Project Gutenberg

One shows associations of dominant overstory and understory plants.

From Project Gutenberg

Artemisia tridentata and Artemisia nova form the overstory in unit F and part of G.

From Project Gutenberg

The trapping areas in the first three mentioned had heavy growths of grass and an overstory of shrubs.

From Project Gutenberg