alder
pronunciation
How to pronounce alder in British English:
UK [ˈɔ:ldə(r)]
How to pronounce alder in American English:
US [ˈɔldɚ]
-
- Noun:
- wood of any of various alder trees; resistant to underwater rot; used for bridges etc
- north temperate shrubs or trees having toothed leaves and conelike fruit; bark is used in tanning and dyeing and the rot-resistant wood
Word Origin
- alder
- alder: [OE] Alder is an ancient tree-name, represented in several other Indo-European languages, including German erle, Dutch els, Polish olcha, Russian ol’khá, and Latin alnus (which is the genus name of the alder in scientific classification). Alder is clearly the odd man out amongst all these forms in having a d, but it was not always so; the Old English word was alor, and the intrusive d does not begin to appear until the 14th century (it acts as a sort of connecting or glide consonant between the l and the following vowel, in much the same way as Old English thunor adopted a d to become thunder). The place-name Aldershot is based on the tree alder.
- alder (n.)
- tree related to the birch, Old English alor "alder" (with intrusive -d- added 14c.; the historical form aller survived until 18c. in literary English and persists in dialects, such as Lancashire owler, which is partly from Norse), from Proto-Germanic *aliso (cognates: Old Norse ölr, Danish elle, Swedish al, Dutch els, German erle), from *el-, the ancient PIE name of the tree (cognates: Russian olicha, Polish olcha, Latin alnus, Lithuanian alksnis).
Example
- 1. He gave john some alder bark .
- 2. They studied how their ancestors pounded fern roots into flour , made snowberries into medicine and smoked salmon over alder wood fires .
- 3. A few scrubby trees , like red alder , have re-established themselves , and ants , frogs , meadowlarks , beavers and other species have moved in .
- 4. An alder is reflected in the water
- 5. Mr alder declined to say when the guidelines would be out .