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Whelm

//ʍɛlm// noun, verb

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A surge of water. also, figuratively, poetic

    "the whelm of the tide"

  2. 2
    A wooden drainpipe, a hollowed out tree trunk, turned with the cavity downwards to form an arched watercourse.

    "A whelm was a wooden drainpipe, a hollowed-out tree trunk, "whelmed down" or turned with the concavity downwards to form an arched watercourse."

Verb
  1. 1
    To bury, to cover; to engulf, to submerge. archaic, transitive

    "Giue fire: ſhe is my prize, or Ocean whelme them all."

  2. 2
    overcome, as with emotions or perceptual stimuli wordnet
  3. 3
    To throw (something) over a thing so as to cover it. obsolete, transitive

    "Gnats and Flies are very troubleſome in Houſes [...] Balls made of Horſe-dung and laid in a Room will do the ſame [attract gnats and flies] if they are new made; by which means you may whelm ſome things over them and keep them there."

  4. 4
    to neither fail to meet nor exceed expectation wordnet
  5. 5
    To ruin or destroy. obsolete, transitive

    "Here, where a Cæsar stood two thousand years ago, the traveller from another continent (though not from New Zealand) stands to-day, to muse—at Pæstum, as at Pompeii—on the fate which overtakes all human things, and at last whelms man and his works in one undistinguishable ruin."

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  1. 6
    To overcome with emotion; to overwhelm. archaic, intransitive

    "Hear Thou our plaint, when light is gone / And lawlessness and strife prevail. / Hear, lest the whelming weight of crime / Wreck us with life in view; / Lest thoughts and schemes of sense and time / Earn us a sinner's due."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English whelmen (“to turn over, capsize; to invert, turn upside down”), perhaps from Old English *hwealmnian, a variant of *hwealfnian, from hwealf (“arched, concave, vaulted; an arched or vaulted ceiling”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwalb, from Proto-Germanic *hwalbą (“arch, vault”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷelp- (“to curve”). Cognates The English word is cognate with Dutch welven (“to arch”), Old Saxon bihwelvian (“to cover, hide”), German wölben (“to bend, curve, arch”), Icelandic hvelfa (“to overturn”), German Walm (“a vaulted roof”), Icelandic hvolf (“vaulted ceiling”), Ancient Greek κόλπος (kólpos, “bosom, hollow, gulf”). The noun is derived from the verb.

Etymology 2

From Middle English whelmen (“to turn over, capsize; to invert, turn upside down”), perhaps from Old English *hwealmnian, a variant of *hwealfnian, from hwealf (“arched, concave, vaulted; an arched or vaulted ceiling”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwalb, from Proto-Germanic *hwalbą (“arch, vault”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷelp- (“to curve”). Cognates The English word is cognate with Dutch welven (“to arch”), Old Saxon bihwelvian (“to cover, hide”), German wölben (“to bend, curve, arch”), Icelandic hvelfa (“to overturn”), German Walm (“a vaulted roof”), Icelandic hvolf (“vaulted ceiling”), Ancient Greek κόλπος (kólpos, “bosom, hollow, gulf”). The noun is derived from the verb.

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