ADDER  , a name for the

common viper ( Vipera cevus), ranging from Wales to Saghalien island, and from Caithness to the north of Spain . The puff-adder (Bitis s . Echidna arietans) of nearly the whole of Africa, and the death-adder (Acanthophis antarcticus) from Australia to the Moluccas, are both very poisonous (see VIPER) . The word was in Old Eng. needre, later nadder or naddre; in the 14th century " a nadder " was, like" a napron," wrongly divided into " an adder." It appears with the generic meaning of " serpent " in the older forms of many Teutonic languages, cf . Old High Ger. natra; Goth. nadrs . It is thus used in the Old Eng. version of the Scriptures for the devil, the " serpent " of Genesis .