Meaning of in the green tree … in the dry | Babel Free

Definitions

In a better situation as against a worse one; used chiefly in rhetorical questions to suggest that the current unfavorable situation will worsen in the future.

dated, idiomatic

Examples

“If this is seen in the green tree, what will it be in the dry? If this is so apparent now when the earth is loaded with her spontaneous fruits; what will it be when winter shall find them unprovided with the necessaries of life?”

“[…] disfranchisement was imposed upon 10,000 legal voters by a tribunal which had no jurisdiction to exclude a vote; if these things can be done in the green tree, what may we not expect to see in the dry?”

“If you do that sort of thing in the green tree, what will you do in the dry? When the honourable member does it to members who support the Prime Minister, what will he do to members of his own party?”

“His case, though never called, was kept in suspense for more than a year, and the dozen Italian workmen, arrested with him, too poor and friendliess to raise the exorbitant bail, remained in prison all that time. These things, and worse, were done in the green tree. Mr. Wallas’ article gives altogether too mild an impression of what is being done in the dry.”

“They saw it as an ominous, a fatal precedent; for if these things were done in the green tree, what would be done in the dry, when the Whigs returned despite the king?”

CEFR level