Etymology

madder

mad·der
M3A1D2D2E1R1

Today it means: A herbaceous plant, Rubia tinctorum, native to Asia, cultivated for a red-purple dye (alizarin) obtained from the root. Full definition →

Middle English mader ← Old English mædere ← Proto-Germanic *madarǭ
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

madder · noun, adjective, verb1

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*modʰro-
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*madarǭ
  3. Old English · inherited frommædere
  4. Middle English · inherited frommader
  5. English todaymadder

From Middle English mader, madere, mædere, from Old English mædere, mæddre, mædre, from Proto-Germanic *madarǭ (compare Swedish måra, Old Norse / Icelandic maðra), from Proto-Indo-European *modʰro-, cognate with Proto-Slavic *modrъ (“blue”), and compare Irish madar (“madder”), Latvian madara (“madder”).

madder · adjective2

Inflected forms.

madder · noun3

  1. Irish · borrowed frommeadar
  2. Irish · borrowed frommeadar
  3. English todaymadder

Borrowed from Irish meadar.

Words from the same roots

Irishmeadar all →

mether

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.