adder
adder Lexical Profile
• noun
A small venomous snake of the viper family (Vipera berus) native to Eurasia, typically characterized by a dark zigzag pattern along its back.
"While hiking in the Scottish Highlands, we were careful to watch our step in case an adder was basking on the sunlit rocks."
Any of various other venomous snakes found in different parts of the world, such as the puff adder in Africa or the death adder in Australia.
"The African puff adder relies on its excellent camouflage to remain hidden among the dry leaves on the forest floor."
An electronic circuit or mathematical component within a computer processing unit that performs the operation of addition.
"The engineer optimized the full adder in the microchip to ensure the arithmetic logic unit processed calculations with maximum efficiency."
• Rhymes for adder
Word Origin & Etymology
The snake sense derives from Old English 'nǣdre' (serpent). Through a linguistic process called rebracketing in Middle English, the phrase 'a nadder' was mistakenly divided by speakers as 'an adder'. The mathematical and computing sense formed completely independently from the verb 'add' + '-er'.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.