Meanings
plural tamaracks
- countableuncountableAny of several North American larches, of the genus Larix.
The motor court was set back from the highway and shaded not by tamaracks but by huge stately elms.
2012, Stephen King, 11/22/63, page 1161 more example
The women peeled tamarack bark for tea, dug through the deep snow in hopes of finding a few dried fiddleheads.
2005, Joseph Boyden, Three Day Road, Penguin, published 2008, page 36- countableuncountableespecially, Larix laricina
Synonyms: American larch, weeping hemlock, hackmatack, black larch, tamarak
- countableuncountableWood from such a tree.
Synonyms & antonyms
nounespecially, Larix laricina
More synonyms by meaning
nounmedium-sized larch of Canada and northern United States including Alaska having a broad conic crown and rust-brown scaly bark
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Proto-Algonquian*-a·xkw-“hardwood or deciduous tree”
- Canadian Frenchtamarac
- Englishtamarack
From Canadian French tamarac, believed to derive from an Algonquian word. 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, as was already recognized by Chamberlain 1902. This makes the precise Algonquian words involved difficult to recover.
More words from Canadian French, Proto-Algonquian
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
tamarack. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tamarack
“tamarack.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tamarack. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tamarack,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tamarack.
Source: tamarack on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.