tamarack
English
[edit]
Etymology
[edit]From Canadian French tamarac, believed to derive from an Algonquian word.[1]
In European languages there was contamination between tacamahac, from Nahuatl, and various Algonquian words containing the final Proto-Algonquian *-a·xkw- (“hardwood or deciduous tree”), including the sources of tamarack and hackmatack,[2] as was already recognized by Chamberlain 1902.[3] This makes the precise Algonquian words involved difficult to recover.
Noun
[edit]tamarack (countable and uncountable, plural tamaracks)
- Any of several North American larches, of the genus Larix.
- 2005, Joseph Boyden, Three Day Road, Penguin, published 2008, page 36:
- The women peeled tamarack bark for tea, dug through the deep snow in hopes of finding a few dried fiddleheads.
- 2012, Stephen King, 11/22/63, page 116:
- The motor court was set back from the highway and shaded not by tamaracks but by huge stately elms.
- The wood from such a tree.
Synonyms
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ “tamarack”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- ^ “hackmatack, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2023.
- ^ Chamberlain, Alexander F. (1902 October–December) “Algonkian Words in American English: A Study in the Contact of the White Man and The Indian”, in The Journal of American Folk-Lore[1], volume XV, number LIX, American Folk-Lore Society, , page 260
