How to pronounce trie

trie is most commonly pronounced "tree" (/triː/). This is one of several readings in active use; the developer community hasn't converged on a single answer.

Knuth (creator): "tree" (from "retrieval"). Most engineers say "try" to disambiguate from binary tree.

Alternate readings you might hear:

• "try" /traɪ/

Source: Knuth TAOCP

Pronouncing project and product names correctly avoids the small but persistent friction of being gently corrected during standups, conference Q&As, and team calls. Hearing the word a few times locks in the right reading better than reading IPA ever will. Pronounce is a community-maintained dictionary — every entry tagged with a confidence level and (where possible) a citable source.