espalier

plural espaliers

1. A latticework used to shape or train the branches of a tree or shrub into a two-dimensional ornamental or useful design, as along a wall or fence.

   The garment stalls carried the traditional blue vine-dressers' outfits, sunhats, and the great willow pitchforks grown in espalier at villages like Sauve.

   1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 223

2. A plant that has been shaped in this manner.

   It is on this rocky surface that one finds many of the growth forms associated with extreme life conditions: polsters, mat plants, espaliers.

   1915 April, F. J. Smiley, “The alpine and subapline vegetation of the Lake Tahoe region”, in Botanical Gazette, volume 59, page 265

3. A row of plants that have been shaped in this manner.

   Often some night-animal, hedgehog or weasel, setting out on the hunt, disturbed the lovers, or sometimes they heard a ripe peach falling all alone from the espalier.

   1886, Gustave Flaubert, chapter XII, in Eleanor Marx-Aveling, transl., Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners […], London: Vizetelly & Co., […], →OCLC, part II, page 218

present singular third person espaliers · participle present espaliering · participle past espaliered · past espaliered

1. transitiveTo train a plant in this manner.