DCHP-1

var varr (obs.) [< dial.var. of fir] Atlantic Provinces

n. the balsam fir; also, its wood.
See also: balsam (fir) (defs 1 and 2)
- 1793 (1937) The men set to work, and . . . cut the crops of a species of ever green wood, which they call varr [in New Brunswick].
- 1842 For some distance, too, the bark of the spruce pine, (pinus balsamifera) called var in Newfoundland, probably from a west of England corruption of fir, was taken off, it being one of the customs of the Boeothics to use the inner bark as food.
- 1904 The woodman's axe, forest fires and the fore-time prosperous ship-building industry have swept away the "Forest primeval," leaving but insignificant growths of the cone-bearing, soft wood species, the commonest being the balsam, fir or var, and spruce.
- 1959 In the feel of drawknife in wood, smoothing a shingle out of straight-grained var, there was something that smoothed the mind.