tamarack

English

Etymology

From Canadian French tamarac, believed to derive from an Algonquian word.[1]

In the 19th century, some authorities questioned if tacamahac, tamarack, and hackmatack could be cognate to one another, perhaps all corruptions of one term, but such cognacy is unlikely.[2]

Noun

tamarack (countable and uncountable, plural tamaracks)

  1. 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.
  2. The wood from such a tree.

Synonyms

References

  1. tamarack”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
  2. Chamberlain, Alexander F. (October–December 1902), Algonkian Words in American English: A Study in the Contact of the White Man and The Indian”, in The Journal of American Folk-Lore, volume XV, issue LIX, American Folk-Lore Society, →DOI, page 260
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