Dictionary

edder en · NOUN · etymology 1

Pronunciation

• /ˈɛdɚ/ rhotic
• /ˈɛðə/ non-rhotic
• /ˈɛdə/ non-rhotic
• /ˈɛðɚ/ rhotic

Etymology

From Middle English *edre, *eder, from Old English eder, edor (“hedge, fence”), from Proto-Germanic *edaraz, *eduraz (“hedge, border”). Cognate with Old High German etar.

Meanings

1. (plural-normally) A long flexible stick, rod or other piece of wood worked into the top of hedge stakes, to bind them together.
   • […] including the making [of] a stake and edder hedge. I had a large quantity of excellent manure out of this ditch, consisting of rotten wood, leaves, &c. &c. &c. But in this experiment I found that our stake and edder hedges are little more to be depended on than the fet ones. 1771, Arthur Young, A Course of Experimental Agriculture: Containing an Exact Register of All the Business Transacted During Five Years on Near Three Hundred Acres of Various Soils ... The Whole Stated in Near Two Thousand Original Experiments ..., page 318:
   • The stake-and-edder hedge prevails in this district. 1796, William Marshall, Rural Economy, I, page 196:
   • The scouring of the ditch is thrown up, a very thin stake and edder hedge is formed, and the rest of the wood made into bavins, and sold principally to bakers, at about a guinea per hundred delivered. 1802, John Lawrence, The New Farmer's Calendar; Or, Monthly Remembrancer, page 254:

Forms

edder en · VERB · etymology 1

Pronunciation

• /ˈɛdɚ/ rhotic
• /ˈɛðə/ non-rhotic
• /ˈɛdə/ non-rhotic
• /ˈɛðɚ/ rhotic

Etymology

From Middle English *edre, *eder, from Old English eder, edor (“hedge, fence”), from Proto-Germanic *edaraz, *eduraz (“hedge, border”). Cognate with Old High German etar.

Meanings

1. (obsolete, transitive) To bind the top of, interweaving edder.
   • to edder a hedge
   • Hazel and ash saplings make good switches, and there are many of these by the roadside, spraying like the forks of a fan. Later they will be used for "eddering" the other side of the lane. 1950, Alison Uttley, Buckinghamshire, page 5:
   • […] hedge, with live stakes and layers cut half in two, near the ground, and intertwisted among the stakes sufficiently to maintain their position without eddering the top. The sides of the hedge are cut alternately; […] 1813, Thomas Batchelor, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Bedford, page 274:

Forms

edder en · NOUN · etymology 2

Etymology

Variant of adder.

Meanings

1. An adder or snake.
   • winges like a bird she hase, Fete as an edder, a mayden's face, Her kinde I'll take 1816, J. H. Hansall, The Stranger in Chester:

Forms