different between attery vs ottery

English

Alternative forms

• attry
• aitrie, aittrie, etri (Scotland)

Etymology

From Middle English attery, attry, attri, ætri?, from Old English ?ttri?, ?tri? (“poisonous”), from Proto-Germanic *aitr?gaz (“poisonous”), equivalent to atter (“poison”) +? -y. Cognate with Dutch etterig (“purulent”), German eiterig (“purulent, festering”), Swedish ettrig (“poisonous”).

Adjective

attery (comparative more attery, superlative most attery)

1. (dialectal or archaic) Poisonous; venomous
2. (dialectal or archaic) Pernicious
3. (of a wound or sore, dialectal or archaic) Purulent; containing pus or matter
4. (of mood or disposition, dialectal or archaic) Bad-tempered; spiteful; quarrelsome; peevish; angry; hot-headed
5. (of weather, dialectal or archaic) Cold; bleak; grim

Synonyms

• atterly

Noun

attery (uncountable)

1. (of weather, dialectal or archaic) Cold, bleak weather.

Related terms

• atter

Anagrams

• treaty, yatter

English

Etymology

otter +? -y

Adjective

ottery (comparative more ottery, superlative most ottery)

1. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of an otter.
   • 1991, BBC Wildlife, page 236:

     Anyone who has watched, for example, a litter of otter cubs rolling about in an ottery tangle can hardly doubt that they're really having fun.

   • 1996, Albert Goldbarth, Adventures in Ancient Egypt: Poems, Ohio State University Press (1996), ?ISBN, page 23:

     […] this guy she's seen before with the . . . ferret? or mongoose? ... an ottery thing, whatever, on a clothesline leash. . . .

   • 2006, Hans Kruuk, Otters: Ecology, Behaviour, and Conservation, Oxford University Press (2006), ?ISBN, page 79:

     Spraints consist mostly of food remains, such as fish bones, to which are added the fairly inconspicuous secretions of two anal glands, situated along the gut close to the anus; they produce the 'ottery' smell.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:ottery.

Synonyms

• lutrine, otterish, otterlike