adder

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈædɚ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ædə(ɹ)

From Middle English nadder, addere, rebracketing of “a naddere” as “an addere”, from Old English nǣdre (“snake”), from Proto-West Germanic *nadrā, from Proto-Germanic *nadrǭ, from pre-Germanic *néh₁treh₂, variant of Proto-Indo-European *n̥h₁trih₂, from *(s)neh₁- (“to spin, twist”).

See also West Frisian njirre, Dutch adder, German Natter, Otter; also Welsh neidr, Latin natrīx (“watersnake”), Dutch naaien.

• edder (dialectal)

adder (plural adders)

1. (obsolete) Any snake.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

     CALIBAN: His spirits hear me, / And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch / Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i'th' mire, / Nor lead me like a firebrand in the dark / Out of my way, unless he bid 'em; but / For every trifle are they set upon me, / Sometimes like apes that mow and chatter at me, / And after bite me; then like hedgehogs, which / Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount / Their pricks at my footfall; sometimes am I / All wound with adders, who with their cloven tongues / Do hiss me into madness—

2. A name loosely applied to various snakes more or less resembling a viper.
   1. (chiefly British) A small venomous serpent of the genus Vipera
      • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXX, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 245:

        Entirely filled with the image of another, her heart, indeed, had the deaf ear of the adder, which heedeth not the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely.

      • 2021 August 25, Nick Brodrick, “Flourishing Flora and Fauna”, in RAIL, number 938, page 51:

        These include the county's [Cumbria's] only venomous snake - the adder - which relies on exposed elements to successfully breed its young.

      1. A common European adder (Vipera berus).
   2. A puff adder, of Africa (genus Bitis).
   3. (US, Canada) Any of several small nonvenomous snakes resembling adders
      1. A milk snake (Lampropeltis triangulum).
      2. A hog-nosed snake, of genus Heterodon of harmless colubrid snakes found in North America
   4. Certain venomous snakes resembling other adders
      1. Death adders (Acanthophis spp.), elapid snakes found in Southeast Asia and Australia
      2. A northern copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix mokasen), a venomous viper found in the eastern United States
3. A sea stickleback or adder fish (Spinachia spinachia).

From add + -er.

adder (plural adders)

1. Someone who or something which performs arithmetic addition; a machine for adding numbers.
2. An electronic device that adds voltages, currents or frequencies.
3. Something which adds or increases.

   They sought out cost adders with an eye toward eliminating them.

• adder on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• dared, dread, radde, re-add, readd

From Dutch adder, from Middle Dutch adder, adre, rebracketing of nadder, nadre, from Old Dutch *nadra, from Proto-Germanic *nadrǭ.

• IPA^(key): /ˈadər/

• Audio:

  (file)

adder (plural adders, diminutive addertjie)

1. viper, adder

From Middle Dutch adder, adre, rebracketing of nadder, nadre, from Old Dutch *nadra, from Proto-West Germanic *nadrā.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɑ.dər/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ad‧der
• Rhymes: -ɑdər

adder m or f (plural adders or adderen, diminutive addertje n)

1. viper, adder (snake of the family Viperidae)
2. common viper (Vipera berus)

• slang

• Afrikaans: adder
• Negerhollands: adder

• dader

adder

1. imperative of addere

Borrowed from Early German adder, dialectal variant of oder (“or”).

adder

1. or
   • 1561, Martin Luther, translated by Abel Will & Paul Megott, Stas Likuts Catechismus [The Small Catechism], →OCLC, page 69, line 8:

     Ains Rikijs adder Supūni

     A lord or lady

2. but, however
   • 1561, Martin Luther, translated by Abel Will & Paul Megott, Stas Likuts Catechismus [The Small Catechism], →OCLC, page 61, line 11:

     Kas ſtwi druwē bhe Crixtits
     wijrſt / ſtas wijrſt Deiwuts / kas adder ni Druwe /
     ſtas wijrſt perklantīts.

     That, who believes and is baptized, shall be blessed; that, however, who doesn't believe, shall be damned.

3. only, but
   • 1561, Martin Luther, translated by Abel Will & Paul Megott, Stas Likuts Catechismus [The Small Catechism], →OCLC, page 39, line 5:

     Tāns preigerdawi adder / etnijſtin bhe wiſſan
     labban

     He pledged but Grace and all the good

• Mažiulis, Vytautas (1988), “adder”, in Prūsų kalbos etimologijos žodynas [Etymological Dictionary of Old Prussian]‎^[1] (in Lithuanian), volume 1, Vilnius: Mokslas, page 48