[ad-er] 
| 1. | the common European viper, Vipera berus. |
| 2. | any of various other venomous or harmless snakes resembling the viper. |
| add·er 1 (ād'ər) n. One that adds, especially a computational device that performs arithmetic addition. |
| ad·der 2 (ād'ər) n.
[Middle English, from an addre, alteration of a naddre, a snake, from Old English nǣdre, snake.] Word History: The biblical injunction to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves looks somewhat alien in the Middle English guise "Loke ye be prudent as neddris and symple as dowves." Neddris, which is perhaps the strangest-looking word in this Middle English passage, would be adders in Modern English, with a different meaning and form. Adder, an example of specialization in meaning, no longer refers to just any serpent or snake, as it once did, but now denotes only specific kinds of snakes. Adder also illustrates a process known as false splitting, or juncture loss: the word came from Old English nǣdre and kept its n into the Middle English period, but later during that stage of the language people started analyzing the phrase a naddre as an addre—the false splitting that has given us adder. |
| vi·per (vī'pər) n.
[Middle English vipere, from Old French, from Latin vīpera, snake, contraction of *vīvipera : vīvus, alive; see gwei- in Indo-European roots + parere, to give birth; see perə-1 in Indo-European roots.] |
Adder
(Ps. 140:3; Rom. 3:13, "asp") is the rendering of, (1.) Akshub ("coiling" or "lying in wait"), properly an asp or viper, found only in this passage. (2.) Pethen ("twisting"), a viper or venomous serpent identified with the cobra (Naja haje) (Ps. 58:4; 91:13); elsewhere "asp." (3.) Tziphoni ("hissing") (Prov. 23:32); elsewhere rendered "cockatrice," Isa. 11:8; 14:29; 59:5; Jer. 8:17, as it is here in the margin of the Authorized Version. The Revised Version has "basilisk." This may have been the yellow viper, the Daboia xanthina, the largest and most dangerous of the vipers of Palestine. (4.) Shephiphon ("creeping"), occurring only in Gen. 49:17, the small speckled venomous snake, the "horned snake," or cerastes. Dan is compared to this serpent, which springs from its hiding-place on the passer-by.