Word.ws English Dictionary

attern

attern adjective: venomous; poisonous.

Adjective

attern (comparative more attern, superlative most attern)

  1. (UK, dialectal) Venomous; poisonous.
  2. (UK, dialectal) Cruel; fierce; ill-natured.

Forms of attern

comparativemore attern
superlativemost attern

Origin of attern

From Middle English attern, from Old English ǣtren (“poisoned, poisonous, venomous”), from Proto-West Germanic *aittrīn (“poisonous”). Equivalent to atter + -en.

Words formed from attern

  • attern-temper

Words that rhyme with attern

Questions about attern

What does attern mean?
Attern means venomous; poisonous.
What part of speech is attern?
Attern is an adjective.

Words near attern in the dictionary

  1. attercop
  2. attercops
  3. attercrop
  4. attercrops
  5. atterly
  6. attern
  7. atterrate
  8. atterrated
  9. atterrates
  10. atterrating
  11. atterration

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: attern (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.

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Cite this entry: “attern.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/attern. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.