Attery

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Cold, bleak weather. archaic, dialectal, uncountable
Adjective
  1. 1
    Poisonous; venomous archaic, dialectal
  2. 2
    Pernicious archaic, dialectal
  3. 3
    Purulent; containing pus or matter archaic, dialectal
  4. 4
    Bad-tempered; spiteful; quarrelsome; peevish; angry; hot-headed archaic, dialectal
  5. 5
    Cold; bleak; grim archaic, dialectal

Etymology

From Middle English attery, attry, attri, ætriȝ, from Old English ǣttriġ, ǣtriġ (“poisonous”), from Proto-Germanic *aitrīgaz (“poisonous”). Cognate with Dutch etterig (“purulent”), German eiterig (“purulent, festering”), Swedish ettrig (“poisonous”). By surface analysis, atter (“poison”) + -y.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.