adder
US/ˈædɚ/
adder noun: any snake.
Noun (1)
adder (plural adders)
- Any snake.
- 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...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...
- A small venomous serpent of the genus Vipera
- 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.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXX, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 245
- These include the county's [Cumbria's] only venomous snake - the adder - which relies on exposed elements to successfully breed its young.2021 August 25, Nick Brodrick, “Flourishing Flora and Fauna”, in RAIL, number 938, page 51
- A common European adder (Vipera berus).
- A puff adder, of Africa (genus Bitis).
- A milk snake (Lampropeltis triangulum).
- A hog-nosed snake, of genus Heterodon of harmless colubrid snakes found in North America
- Death adders (Acanthophis spp.), elapid snakes found in Southeast Asia and Australia
- A northern copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix mokasen), a venomous viper found in the eastern United States
- A sea stickleback or adder fish (Spinachia spinachia).
Noun (2)
adder (plural adders)
- Someone who or something which performs arithmetic addition; a machine for adding numbers.
- An electronic device that adds voltages, currents or frequencies.
- Something which adds or increases.
- They sought out cost adders with an eye toward eliminating them.
Noun (3) capitalized: ADDer
ADDer (plural ADDers)
- A person who has attention deficit disorder.
- Many ADDers become targets for bullies and are routinely harassed at school.1996, David Sosin, Attention Deficit Disorder, page 54
adder meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Kannada and Sanskrit
adder in Tamil
- கூட்டல் பொறி, ஒருவகை நச்சுப்பாம்பு
adder in Urdu
- افعی
adder in Kannada
- ಸಂಕಲಕ
adder in Sanskrit
- viper
- पृदाकु pṛdāku
- snake
- पृदाकु pṛdāku
More languagesFewer languages
- adder in Indonesian
- senawan
- adder in Thai
- อสรพิษ à-sɔ̌ɔ-rá-pít, งู nguu
Examples of adder in a sentence
- I cannot say that I ever saw an adder, in regard there are none in these parts.
- After being bitten by the adder, the man self-sucked his wound in order to remove some of the venom.
- The Kimberley death adder is roughly 24 inches (60 cm) long and has a diamond-shaped head.
Forms of adder
| plural | adders |
|---|---|
| plural | ADDers |
| alternative form (dialectal) | edder |
Origin of adder
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.
From add + -er.
From ADD + -er.
Words formed from adder
- adder bead
- adderbolt
- adder fish
- adder fly
- adderlike
- adder mouth
- adder stone
- adderwort
- butterfly adder
- common death adder
- deaf adder
- death adder
- Gaboon adder
- hissing adder
- horned adder
- Kimberley death adder
- night adder
- pit adder
- pit-adder
- puff adder
- sea adder
- water adder
- adder-subtractor
- carry-lookahead adder
- carry-save adder
- carry-skip adder
- full adder
- half adder
Phrases with adder
Words that rhyme with adder
Questions about adder
- What does adder mean?
- Adder means any snake.
- What is adder in Tamil?
- Adder in Tamil is கூட்டல் பொறி, ஒருவகை நச்சுப்பாம்பு. See Adder meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is adder?
- Adder is a noun.
- How do you pronounce adder?
- Adder is pronounced /ˈædɚ/ (US).
- What is the plural of adder?
- The plural of adder is adders.
Words near adder in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: adder (page history and authors); ADDer (page history and authors); adder (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); adder (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); adder (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-adder.ogg.
Cite this entry: “adder.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/adder. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.