adderbolt
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From adder (“venomous snake”) + bolt (“arrow”).
Noun
[edit]adderbolt (plural adderbolts)
- (now UK dialectal) A dragonfly. [from 15th c.]
- 1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia, section XXXIX:
- Other Animals I observ'd to have yet a greater number, as the Dragon-Fly or Adderbolt […].
- 1742, John Martyn, Ephraim Chambers, transl., The Philosophical History and Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, volume II, page 355:
- This philosopher has also found an insect fish, which transforms into an adder-bolt.