walm

English

Etymology

From Middle English walmen (“to surge, bubble forth, pour forth”), from walm, walme (“a gush, surge”), from Old English wælm, welm, wylm, wielm, wilm (“that which wells, a fount, stream, spring, source, surge”), from Proto-West Germanic *walmi, *walmu, from Proto-Germanic *walmiz, *walmuz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wɔːm/, /wɑ(ː)m/

Verb

walm (third-person singular simple present walms, present participle walming, simple past and past participle walmed)

1. (obsolete) To roll; to spout; to boil up.
   • 1610, William Camden, translated by Philémon Holland, Britain, or A Chorographicall Description of the Most Flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland, […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press for] Georgii Bishop & Ioannis Norton, →OCLC:

     The waters boile, and walme to our desire.

   • 1845(?), A view of Devonshire in 1630, with a Pedigree of most of its gentry, page 344:

     It serveth the inhabitants with fresh water walming out of springs, though itself be on all sides circumpassed about with the sea.

   • 1905, The Myths of Plato, page 442:

     […] a mighty huge hole or gulf all round, in manner of a hollow globe cut through the midst, exceeding deep and horrible to see to, full of much darkness, and the same not quiet and still, but turbulent and oftentimes boiling and walming upward, out of which there might be heard innumerable roarings and groanings of beasts, cries and wrawlings of an infinite number of children, […]

References

• “walm”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “walm”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Dutch

Etymology

From Old Dutch walm (“heat, glow, zeal”), from Proto-Germanic *wallaną (“to spring, well, bubble”). Compare Old English wilm (“cooking, boiling, undulating movement”).

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑlm

Noun

walm m (plural walmen, diminutive walmpje n)

1. waft
2. sooty smoke

Descendants

• Afrikaans: walm

Verb

walm

1. inflection of walmen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

Further reading

• van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “walm”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute