adder

n.
One that adds, especially a computational device that performs arithmetic addition.


ad·der² (ăd'ər)
n.

1. See viper (sense 1).
2. Any of several nonvenomous snakes, such as the milk snake of North America, popularly believed to be harmful.

[Middle English, from an addre, alteration of a naddre, a snake, from Old English nǣdre, snake.]

WORD HISTORY   The biblical injunction to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves looks somewhat alien in the Middle English guise "Loke ye be prudent as neddris and symple as dowves." Neddris, which is perhaps the strangest-looking word in this Middle English passage, would be adders in Modern English, with a different meaning and form. Adder, an example of specialization in meaning, no longer refers to just any serpent or snake, as it once did, but now denotes only specific kinds of snakes. Adder also illustrates a process known as false splitting, or juncture loss: the word came from Old English nǣdre and kept its n into the Middle English period, but later during that stage of the language people started analyzing the phrase a naddre as an addre-the false splitting that has given us adder.

For more information on adder, visit Britannica.com.

An elementary electronic circuit that adds the bits of two numbers together.

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There are a number of beliefs about the adder which have been collected across the country, with little variation. It was said to be deaf, on the authority of Psalm 58 (‘They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice of the charmer’). It can only die at sunset, and if you kill one its mate will come looking for you. Adult female adders swallow their young when in danger, then vomit them up once the danger is past. An adder coming to the door of a house is a death omen, and to dream of adders means your enemies are trying to do you some secret mischief. In the Fens, it was said they were attracted by the smell of a menstruating woman (Porter, 1969: 51).

Adders were thought to like milk. A story in The British Chronicle of 15 October 1770 concerns a farmer and his wife who, having noticed that their best cow gave little milk, stayed up one night to catch the thief. Just about sunrise they saw ‘a most enormous overgrown adder, or hag worm, crawl out of the bush, and winding up one of the cow's legs, apply its mouth to one of the paps’. The man managed to kill it with his cudgel, and the stuffed four-foot long skin could be seen displayed at the farmhouse (quoted in Morsley, 1979: 72).

On the principle that like cures like, adder's oil was prized as a remedy for deafness and earache; one snake-catcher used to sell it regularly to a chemist in Uckfield (Sussex) at a guinea an ounce in the late 19th century. The way to catch an adder was to shake a silk neckcloth in front of the snake, which would strike at it and be unable to withdraw its fangs; one could then break its back, slash its skin, and hang it in a warm place for the fat to drip out as oil.

A shed adder skin could draw out thorns, splinters, or even needles when applied to the other side of the hand or finger. This cure is mentioned by Aubrey (1686, 1880: 38), as well as by 19th- and 20th-century folklorists. He also mentions that ‘Sussexians’ wear the skins ‘for hatt-bands, which they say doe preserve them from the gripeing of the gutts’. Other sources list this as a remedy for a headache. In Cornwall, adder skin sewn to flannel was worn by pregnant women as a belt (Opie and Tatem, 1989: 362-3).

If a man or animal has been bitten by an adder, the best remedy is fat taken from that very adder, but another is to wrap the victim in a fresh sheepskin. Aubrey's cure (Natural History of Wiltshire MS in Royal Society) involves the ‘fundament of a pigeon applied to the biteplace’. The pigeon will quickly die. Keep putting fresh pigeons to the wound till they stop dying.

A loose nomenclature of snakes which cuts across scientific classification. Includes puff adder, common English adder which are viperine snakes, and the Australian adder which is an elapine snake.

• death a. — gray-brown, dark, banded, 30 inch Australian elapid snake which is aggressive and a rapid striker. The venom is a potent toxin. The bite often leaves no mark but is usually fatal. Called also Acanthophis antarcticus.
• desert death a. — a specially adapted, smaller desert form of the death adder. Called also Acanthophis antarcticus pyrrhus.
• puff a. — Bitis arietans, an unaggressive but highly poisonous African snake, 3 to 5 ft long with a thick body.

A cynical view of the world by Ambrose Bierce

n.

A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.

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Common misspelling(s) of adders

• addres

Dansk (Danish)
1.
n. - hugorm

2.
n. - adderingsmaskine, additionsmaskine

Nederlands (Dutch)
adder

Français (French)
1.
n. - additionneur

2.
n. - (Zool) vipère, serpent venimeux

Deutsch (German)
1.
n. - Otter, Viper, Natter

2.
n. - jdn. der hinzufügt, Additionsmaschine

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - αθροιστής, (ζωολ.) έχιδνα, κν. οχιά

Italiano (Italian)
addizionatore, addizionatrice, vipera, marasso

Português (Portuguese)
n. - víbora (Zool.)

Русский (Russian)
гадюка, уж (амер.)

Español (Spanish)
1.
n. - víbora

2.
n. - persona o cosa que suma o registra

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - räknemaskin, huggorm

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
1. 欧洲产的小毒蛇, 北美的无毒小蛇

2. 加者, 加法电路, 加法器

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
1.
n. - 加者, 加法電路, 加法器

2.
n. - 歐洲產的小毒蛇, 北美的無毒小蛇

한국어 (Korean)
1.
n. - 계산기

2.
n. - 살모사, 독 없는 뱀

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 計算者, 加算器, クサリヘビ

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) ألمضيف, ألضام, ألجامع, أفعى‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מוסיף‬
n. - ‮אפעה (נחש)‬

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