Home UK English adder

Main meanings of adder in English

: adder1adder2

adder1

Pronunciation /ˈadə/

See synonyms for adder on Thesaurus.com

Translate adder into Spanish

noun

  • 1A small venomous Eurasian snake which has a dark zigzag pattern on its back and bears live young. It is the only poisonous snake in Britain.

    Also called viper

    Vipera berus, family Viperidae

    ‘The mating system and spacing pattern of adders largely agree with those of sand lizards.’
    • ‘There are also reptiles, like adders or grass snakes, slow-worms and lizards that are prone to fire damage because they cannot get out quickly enough.’
    • ‘Along with the loss of heather and cottongrass, birds such as the nightjar, woodlark and stone curlew and animals including the adder, grass snake, and viviparous lizard have been put at risk.’
    • ‘The most interesting part was when the lecturer talked about a character called William Bunting, who used to catch wild adders to feed to the mongooses at London Zoo.’
    • ‘Frogs, toads, lizards and foot-long slow worms are common in the area, as well as poisonous adders.’
    1. 1.1Used in names of snakes that are similar or related to the adder, e.g. death adder, puff adder.
      ‘A side-winding adder buries itself just beneath the hot sand exposing only its eyes, patiently waiting for unsuspecting prey.’
      • ‘The ‘horns’ of his horned adder, resembling a stunning set of false eyelashes, would have drag queens running for cover.’

Origin

Old English nædre ‘serpent, adder’, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch adder and German Natter. The initial n was lost in Middle English by wrong division of a naddre; compare with apron, auger, and umpire.

Main meanings of adder in English

: adder1adder2

adder2

Pronunciation /ˈadə/

See synonyms for adder on Thesaurus.com

Translate adder into Spanish

noun

Electronics

  • A unit which adds together two input variables. A full adder can add a bit carried from another addition as well as the two inputs, whereas a half adder can only add the inputs together.

    ‘An adder adds the difference and the multiplexed signal and outputs therefrom a driving signal to drive the LD.’
    • ‘Further, a semiconductor integrated circuit has a dither pattern generator, an adder, and an error distribution unit.’
    • ‘Note that multiplication is done using a SINGLE full bit adder, with the carry bit and output fed back in as feedback loops.’
    • ‘In the 1960s there were several more projects to build ternary logic gates and memory cells, and to assemble these units into larger components such as adders.’
    • ‘It measures time by what Hillis calls a serial-bit adder, a highly accurate binary digital-mechanical system he invented.’