Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. See balsam poplar.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The American larch, Larix Americana: called tamarack in the northwestern lumber-regions. See larch. Sometimes hackmetack.
- n. The juniper, Juniperus communis.
Wiktionary
- n. A larch, a tree of the species Larix laricina.
- n. nonstandard A balsam poplar, a tree of the species Populus balsamifera.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) The American larch (Larix Americana), a coniferous tree with slender deciduous leaves; also, its heavy, close-grained timber. Called also
tamarack .
WordNet 3.0
- n. poplar of northeastern North America with broad heart-shaped leaves
Etymologies
- Earlier hakmantak, hacmontac, perhaps from Western Abenaki. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Dad said the hackmatack was a native name for the tamarack (American, or black, larch (Larix laricina)), the roots of which were commonly used to make ships' knees (a piece used to fasten keel to hull, I believe, which had to be very strong).”
“Hortus Third lists two distinct specific epithets for "hackmatack": Populus balsamifera, a member of the Salix (willow) family; and Larix laricina, of the Pinaeceae (pine family).”
“Grieve shows "hackmatack" as a synonym for yet another tree, the "yellow cedar", listed under Thuja occidentalis (Linn.), of the (now-outdated) Natural Order Coniferae.”
“That said, I can testify as a native speaker of northern Maine-ese that in Piscataquis County in the 1970s, "hackmatack" clearly referred both to the tamarack notable, according to my sixth-grade science teacher, for being the only deciduous needleleaf tree and for a kind of poplar-ish tree that was also popularly known as "popple," technically the quaking aspen.”
“Spelling of 'hackmatack' standardised to ensure consistency with other uses”
“Our deciduous evergreens tamaracks, also called larch and hackmatack are filling in with fresh bright needles, some white water-flower was blooming spikes out in the bog, and white lady-slipper orchids bloomed right at the edge of the road.”
“Common names for P. balsamifera include balsam poplar, hackmatack, and tacamahac; common names for L. laricina include American larch, tamarack, hackmatack, and black larch.”
“Could it be that tacamahac (Populus) and hackmatack (Larix) got confused (the words, not the trees)?”
“Having spent considerable time in New England, I was always aware of those conifers commonly referred to as "larches", and I always thought a hackmatack tree was some sort of larch, hackmatack being a corruption of a Wampanoag or Massachusett word.”
“A competitive googling produced 755 hits for "hackmatack, larix" and only 342 for "hackmatack, populus," but that's not exactly a scientific way of deciding the matter.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hackmatack’.
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Silly-sounding words
Serious words that sound silly when you say them
philosophunculist, argy-bargy, Labradoodle, shittah, shittim, floccinaucinihili..., succedaneum, honorificabilitud..., fag-ma-fuff, buffarilla, yazzihamper, mammothrept and 140 more...
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the life of words that ar not well known
Anyone who has a strange word may put it here
ajanorgan, hackmatack, cafas, ar, war tourist, antediluvian, coruscate, arachibutyrophia, galactosemia, butt weight, harlot
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Wordplayer's Wonderful Words
chaparral, grotesque, knork, newsmonger, thitherwards, fackeltanz, kakistocracy, sforzando, compendium, frump, inquere, phosphene and 100 more...
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Trees!
mahogany, sequoia, balsa, sandalwood, tamarind, balsam, eucalyptus, birch, willow, buttonwood, evergreen, loblolly and 501 more...
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Balderdash
If you've ever played the game "Balderdash," you may have heard of the 'Weird Words' category. This category lists some pretty strange words... these are a few examples of word you may come across ...
fackeltanz, bwlch, philtrum, dewlap, bunjibunji, ferdwit, baronduki, zamouse, sialogogue, shchekotiki, fipple, progger and 99 more...
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Hedgepiglet
Words for things both tangible and nonanthropic
rorqual, vellus, wrasse, rainbow bee-eater, tinkershire, lemonquat, boomslang, tufted vetch, cubeb, nipplefruit, madapple, wad and 447 more...
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Rabindranath Not Included
i can't never forget thiccyn's!
bubaline, dezinkhornifistib..., hirundine, bee veil, cuckoo spit, resistentialism, hobthrush, burniebee, hookem-snivey, fattiehead, mompyns, mons and 142 more...
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Monovocalics
Words that have only one of the vowels. On this list I include only words with at least three vowels. When I first started the list, if a word had several forms, I generally listed only the one wit...
syzygy, mirific, cumulus, homolog, monocot, bedewed, jezebel, referee, bikini, minikin, locomotor, terebenthene and 2359 more...
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Triads 2
I kept running into triads that were interesting for their sounds rather than their meanings, so I've listed them here, and moved a few over from my original Triads list. See also Triads 3.
bibbity bobbity boo, rub-a-dub-dub, zippity doo dah, razzmatazz, hackmatack, williwaw, tra la la, fiddle dee dee, ooh la la, yabba dabba doo, cis boom bah, hickory dickory dock and 12 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hackmatack.
itz_chucknorris wow this word is salubrius Jul 31, 2010
reesetee Balsam poplar; variants are hackmetack and tacamahac. Thought to derive from Western Abenaki language, it originally referred to a forest of tamarack and other conifers. Jul 12, 2007