sequoia

noun

se·​quoia si-ˈkwȯi-ə 

: either of two huge coniferous California trees of the bald cypress family that may reach a height of over 300 feet (90 meters):

a

: giant sequoia

b

: redwood sense 3a

Examples of sequoia in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Yet sequoias can also grow very tall. —AFAR Media, 28 Oct. 2025

As a nod to this provenance, the National Park Service’s iconic flat ranger hats are wrapped in a leather band with gold sequoia cones. —Gloria Liu, Outside Online, 22 Oct. 2025

Over 50 species of trees can be found here, including a heritage sequoia and Douglas firs. —Zoe Baillargeon, Travel + Leisure, 13 Oct. 2025

Some sequoias are more than 3,000 years old. —Kurt Snibbe, Oc Register, 20 Sep. 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from New Latin, genus name, of uncertain origin

Note: The genus name Sequoia was introduced by the Austrian polymath and botanist Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher (1804-49) in Synopsis coniferarum (St. Gallen, 1847), pp. 197-98. Endlicher refers to his earlier description under the same name in his Generum plantarum supplementum quartum, which he characterizes as "inedit[um]," i.e., not yet published. This account of the genus was eventually published, in Vienna in 1847, but most likely not till after Synopsis coniferarum, as it references the description in the Synopsis. Endlicher says nothing in either publication about the origin of the name. Subsequent to Endlicher's early death in 1849, there has been much speculation on the etymology, related in detail by Gary D. Lowe in "Endlicher's Sequence: The Naming of the Genus Sequoia," Fremontia, Journal of the California Native Plant Society, vol. 40, no. 1-2 (January-May, 2012), pp. 25-35. Since at least 1856 the popular press associated the genus name with Sequoyah (George Gist or Guess, ca. 1770-1843), the creator of the Cherokee syllabary. This origin was accepted by the geologist Josiah Dwight Whitney, who reproduced it in The Yosemite Book (New York, 1868 [released in 1869]), which in subsequent reprintings as The Yosemite Guide-Book probably gave it wide circulation. According to another line of thought, Sequoia was based on the Latin verb sequī "to follow." Lowe, in the above article, argues that when Endlicher observed that the median number of seeds in the seed scale of a Sequoia cone fits between the numbers in the genera Arthrotaxis and Sciadopitys, so that the whole forms a sequence (Latin sequentia), he named the genus after this sequence. An obvious weakness of this argument is that sequoia is not actually a Latin word, nor even a likely Latin word, because there is no classical or post-classical Latin suffix -oia. It would be an arbitrary formation with no self-evident meaning. See further Nancy Muleady-Mecham, "Endlicher and Sequoia: Determination of the Etymological Origin of the Taxon Sequoia," Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences, vol. 116, issue 2 (August, 2017), pp. 137-46. Endlicher's career is treated comprehensively in Christa Riedl-Dorn, Ein uomo universale des 19. Jahrhunderts und sein wissenschaftliches Netzwerk: Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher und seine Korrespondenz mit Wissenschaftlern seiner Zeit (Vienna University Press, 2019). (Both authors accept the eponymic origin.)

First Known Use

circa 1866, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing sequoia

• giant sequoia

Rhymes for sequoia

• paranoia
• soya

Kids Definition

sequoia

noun

se·​quoia si-ˈkwȯi-(y)ə 

: either of two huge cone-bearing California trees that are related to the bald cypresses and may grow to a height of over 300 feet (90 meters):

a

: giant sequoia

b

: redwood