Adder

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈædɚ/

Definitions

1. A reptile with a venomous bite, typically found in Europe and Asia, or a device or person that combines numbers or quantities together
2. A type of snake known for its poisonous tendencies, commonly found in certain regions, or an instrument used for summing values in calculations or by a person who does addition
3. A venomous serpentine creature often located in specific geographic areas, along with a mechanism or individual that performs the act of aggregating numerical figures

Etymology: The snake and the arithmetic tool share a word only by accident. The snake's name is the older of the two, and it came into English by a slip of the ear. In Old English the snake was "nǣdre", and in Middle English it became "naddre". Speakers heard "a naddre" as "an addre", and the initial n was reassigned to the indefinite article, leaving the snake with a bare "adder". The same kind of slip gave us "apron" from "napron" and "umpire" from "noumpere". The sense of the word as a device or person that adds things is a different matter. It is simply the English "add" with the agent suffix "-er", so an adder is one who adds, and the machine name follows from that. The two words meet only in spelling, and the snake's history owes nothing to arithmetic.

Synonyms: snake, serpent, viper, reptile, crotaline