Treechange
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A movement of people from cities to the countryside. Australia, uncountable
"Treechange refers to the trend for baby boomers to seek out lifestyle property in country towns usually within a two–three hour drive of a capital city. The drivers of treechange and seachange are the same: people wanting a simpler life in a pleasant town with all the amenities not too far from their interests in the city."
- 2 An act of relocating from an urban to a rural community. Australia, countable
Example
More examples"Treechange refers to the trend for baby boomers to seek out lifestyle property in country towns usually within a two–three hour drive of a capital city. The drivers of treechange and seachange are the same: people wanting a simpler life in a pleasant town with all the amenities not too far from their interests in the city."
Etymology
From tree + change, modelled after seachange. According to the Australian author and demographer Bernard Salt, the word was coined by “a subeditor” in 2003 and thereafter adopted by him.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.