Etymology: The word was in Old Eng. noedre, 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 English version of the Christian Scriptures for the devil, the serpent of Genesis.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump