Sc. [In sense 1, app. from COVEN; but 2 is of uncertain origin.]
1. trans. ‘A large tree in front of old Scottish mansion-houses, where the laird met his visitors’ (Jamieson), or where he assembled his retainers.
1823. Scott, Quentin D., iii. I love not the Castle when the covin-tree bears such acorns as I see yonder.
1844. W. H. Maxwell, Sports & Adv. Scotl., App. (1853), 333. At all old Scottish mansion-houses, there was a tree at some distance from the door, called the coglin tree, (variously the covan tree,) where the landlord met his guests.
1882. Blackw. Mag., Sept., 367/2. The Border reivers were being hung to their own ‘covin trees’ by rough-and-ready Jedburgh justice.
2. A local name of the shrub Viburnum Lantana, called also Wayfaring (Man’s) Tree: recorded by Britten and Holland from Bucks and Wilts.
a. 1697. Aubrey (Brit. & Holl.), Coven-tree common about Chalke and Cranbourn Chase; the carters doe make their whippes of it.
