Dadder

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Dialect verb meaning to tremble or shake, especially from weakness, cold, or fear
2. In regional English usage, to quiver or shake unsteadily as if from age or infirmity
3. A dialect word for trembling or quivering, the body or a limb shaking involuntarily

Etymology: In its noun sense, this is a dialect word meaning a shaking fit or tremor. It belongs to the same family as the verb of the same spelling, which means to shiver, quake, or tremble, and the two forms developed together in regional speech. Because it is recorded mainly in dialect rather than in the standard written language, its early attestations are thin, and dialect dictionaries are the best place to see how people used it. Its ultimate origin is uncertain. Words of this shape, with a repeated "d" and a sense of rapid, uncontrolled movement, are often thought to be imitative, built to sound like the trembling they describe, and some scholars link them to Low German and Dutch verbs for shaking. Those connections are plausible but not firmly established, so the safest account is that the word is native to English dialect and probably of Germanic stock, with its exact history still unclear.