adder

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English naddre (“snake”), later addre and eddre,^[2][3] inherited from Old English nǣdre (“snake, serpent”), also næddre,^[4][5][6][7] from Proto-Germanic *nadrǭ,^[8][9] and it lost its first letter when a naddre was taken for an addre.^{[10][3][6][7][11]} Barnhart places the change between about 1300 and 1400, and Etymonline between the 14th and 16th centuries;^[10][4] apron, auger and umpire lost an n- in the same way.^[6][7][4] The word has cognates in Middle Dutch nadre, Old Saxon nādra and Old High German nātara, whence German Natter,^[12][6][7] and with a different ablaut grade in Old Norse naðra and Gothic 𐌽𐌰𐌳𐍂𐍃 (nadrs).^[12][6] According to the OED, Dutch adder and Middle Low German adder dropped the n- by a similar reanalysis after the indefinite article.^[12] Outside Germanic, the word is related to Latin natrīx (“water snake”), whose sense was probably influenced by natō (“to swim”), and to Old Irish nathir (“snake”) and Welsh neidr (“snake”).^{[12][4][13][3]} Etymonline starts from Proto-Indo-European *nētr- (“snake”),^[4] which Merriam-Webster writes *nh₁tr- and takes as probably an agent noun meaning "one who winds or twists", from *(s)neh₁- (“to twist together, spin”),^[3] the base the OED and Klein also propose, and the source of needle.^[12][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A snake or serpent of any kind, especially the serpent of the Fall: early Old English, in the Royal Psalter.^[12][4] Barnhart dates the Old English form to about 950, and Dictionary.com to before 950.^[10][14] Bosworth–Toller glosses it as any kind of serpent, adder or viper.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word was general at first, as Ayto stresses: any snake, not just the adder.^[11] The generic use lasted until 1846 in the OED's record, while from Old English on the word was also the name of the common viper,^[12] and Etymonline regards it as restricted to that animal since Middle English, the viper being the only venomous reptile in Britain.^[4] The figurative use for a treacherous or malicious person is also Old English and follows the same use of Latin words for snakes in the Vulgate;^[12] a further sense, a winged serpent or dragon, died out by 1500.^[12] In Gower the spellings addre, eddre, neddre and thaddre stand side by side, while Chaucer has forms with n-,^[15] and Ayto notes that nadder had left the mainstream language by the 17th century,^[11] though nedder lived on in northern English dialect.^[4][16] English speakers then applied the word to venomous snakes abroad from 1698, as in puff adder, and in the United States from 1842 to harmless snakes such as the hognose.^[12][4] Johnson (1755) noted that adders and snakes were not the same in common language.^[17] In Shropshire dialect it could still mean any snake,^[18] regional English also used it for the slow-worm, once thought venomous,^[12] and northern English for a dragonfly.^[12] The image of the deaf adder goes back to Psalm 58, where the snake stops its ears against the charmer.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 950 – a snake or serpent in general (in use until 1846).^[10][12]
• Old English – the common viper; a malicious person; a winged serpent or dragon (until 1500).^[12]
• 1086 – in the place name Nedrefelle, Sussex, now Netherfield.^[12]
• 14th century – addre spreads through the misdivision of a naddre.^[10][11][3]
• before 1616 – regionally, the slow-worm, in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens.^[12]
• 1698 – any of various venomous snakes abroad, usually with a distinguishing word.^[12]
• 1842 – in the United States, a harmless snake such as the hognose.^[12]
• 1876 – in northern English dialect, a dragonfly.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. The common viper (Vipera berus), a small venomous snake of Europe and Asia with a dark zigzag along its back.^[19][3][12]
2. Any of various other venomous snakes, as the puff adder.^[19][3][12]
3. Any of several harmless North American snakes, as the hognose snake or the milk snake.^[3][12]
4. (figurative) A treacherous or malicious person.^[12]
5. (obsolete, Old English–1846) A snake or serpent of any kind.^[12][17]

Word family

• death adder

Related words

• needle

Usage notes

A word adder with a separate origin, formed from add and the suffix -er, means a person or thing that adds.^[12][3] It is recorded from 1547;^[12][3] an adding machine was so called from 1856, and an electronic unit that sums its inputs, especially in a computer, from 1933.^[12]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
19. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins