alder
1 Americannoun
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any shrub or tree belonging to the genus Alnus, of the birch family, growing in moist places in northern temperate or colder regions and having toothed, simple leaves and flowers in catkins.
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any of various trees or shrubs resembling an alder.
noun
noun
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any N temperate betulaceous shrub or tree of the genus Alnus, having toothed leaves and conelike fruits. The bark is used in dyeing and tanning and the wood for bridges, etc because it resists underwater rot
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any of several similar trees or shrubs
Etymology
Origin of alder
before 900; Middle English alder, aller, Old English alor, al ( e ) r; cognate with Old Norse ǫlr, Middle Low German al ( l ) er < Germanic *álusṓ; akin to Middle High German alze < Germanic *alū́sō, Old High German elira, erila ( German Erle ) < Germanic *álisṓ, Middle Low German els ( e ) < Germanic *alísō, hence Germanic *álus, alísō; compare Polish olcha, Russian olʾkhá < Indo-European dialect *alisā; Lithuanian al̃ksnis, Latin alnus < Indo-European dialect *alsnos
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He found three small alders and dragged them, one at a time, to where Abby sat.
From Literature
Mama tried everything: red alder bark tea, hot water with onion juice.
From Literature
He turned the bend by the enormous alder tree, where the swing I’d spent hours in as a child still hung.
From Literature
More dryads emerged from other trees; some were eight feet tall, their skin the soft cream brown of a sequoia, others the near black of the alder tree.
From Literature
The blackened, burned trees eventually gave way to live ponderosa pines, and then to untouched bearclover and white alder, and at last she and Dodger were back among the monarchs again.
From Literature
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
