alder

plural alders · alternative owler · alternative UK dialectal aller

1. Any of several trees or shrubs of the genus Alnus, belonging to the birch family.

   That's what the tiercel was doing when I found him again in the alder.

   1967, J. A. Baker, The Peregrine, page 40

   2 more examples

   I’ve known ere now an interfering branch / Of alder catch my lifted axe behind me. / But that was in the woods, to hold my hand / From striking at another alder’s roots, / And that was, as I say, an alder branch.

   1923 October, Robert Frost, “[Notes.] The Axe-helve.”, in New Hampshire […], New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, page 37

   Have a tree or two the witches particularly like, such as the alder, larch, cypress and hemlock; then, to counteract any possible evil effects, there must be a holly, yew, hazel, elder, mountain ash or juniper.

   1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 273

plural alders · alternative owler · alternative UK dialectal aller

1. An alderman or alderwoman.

   Almost immediately, city alders contacted the campaign to negotiate an ordinance.

   2004, Stephanie Luce -, Fighting for a Living Wage, page 121

   2 more examples

   Chicago's mayor Edward Kennelly, the city alders, and many white Chicagoans opposed this siting plan.

   2013, Dawn Day Biehler, Pests in the City: Flies, Bedbugs, Cockroaches, and Rats, page 180

   After three years as Ward 1 alder, Sarah Eidelson ’12 will leave city government at the end of the year.

   2017 September 28, Isabel Bysiewicz, “Eidelson reflects on time as alder”, in Yale Daily News

plural Alders · alternative Older

1. A topographic surname from Middle English for someone who lived by alder trees.