Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A deciduous North American larch (Larix laricina) of moist soil, having short needlelike leaves that turn yellow in the fall.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The black or American larch, or hackmatack, Larix Americana, found in moist uplands in British America, and of less size massed in cool swamps in the northern United States.
  • noun The abundant black or ridge-pole pine, Pinus Murrayana, of the Sierras and dry gravelly interior regions of western North America. The allied Pinus contorta, or scrub-pine, of the coast may be also included under the name.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The American larch; also, the larch of Oregon and British Columbia (Larix occidentalis). See hackmatack, and larch.
  • noun The black pine (Pinus Murrayana) of Alaska, California, etc. It is a small tree with fine-grained wood.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of several North American larches, of the genus Larix; the wood from such a tree

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun medium-sized larch of Canada and northern United States including Alaska having a broad conic crown and rust-brown scaly bark

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Canadian French tamarac, probably of Algonquian origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Believed to derive from an Algonquian word.

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Examples

Comments

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  • A ball of fire shoots through the tamarack

    In scarlet splendor, on voluptuous wings;

    Delirious joy the pyrotechnist brings,

    Who marks for us high summer’s almanac.

    - Joel Benton, 'The Scarlet Tanager'.

    September 20, 2009

  • Oh, to see the tamaracks all turn to yellow like maple trees in the fall! Still, I wonder if Scarlet Tanagers ever visit boreal forests where tamaracks dwell. A case of poetic license?

    September 20, 2009