DCHP-2

var varr (obs.) [< dial.var. of fir] Atlantic Provinces DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

• 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.