climb
/ˈklaɪ̯m/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.22 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "after I had found (the goats') haunts a little, I laid wait in this manner for them: I observed if they saw me in the valleys, though they were upon the rocks, they would run away, as in a terrible fright; but if they were feeding in the valleys, and I was upon the rocks, they took no notice of me; from whence I concluded that, by the position of their optics, their sight was so directed downward that they did not readily see objects that were above them; so afterwards I took this method - I always climbed the rocks first, to get above them, and then had frequently a fair mark."
- "People ask me, What is the use of climbing Mount Everest? and my answer must at once be, "It is of no use." There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever...What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for."
- "When I call up Dennis Tully to memory, it is always in the shop or in the fine, crowded house that I see him, and never standing apart, with clear space shaping itself behind him. And yet I must often have seen him so, climbing down the church steps after Mass, or walking across the square, hat firmly anchored. Always, I see him moving among things, a thick atmosphere of objects."
- "Black vapours climb aloft, and cloud the day."
- "Looking up suddenly, I found mine eyes / Confronted with the minster's vast repose. / Silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff / Left inland by the ocean's slow retreat, / […] / Remembering shocks of surf that clomb and fell, / Spume-sliding down the baffled decuman, […]"
- "So we continue climbing to the saddle of the Kleine Scheidegg, where ahead there comes into view the wide expanse of the Grindelwald valley, backed by the snowy crown of the Wetterhorn."
Etymology
From Middle English climben, clymben, from Old English climban (“to climb”), from Proto-West Germanic *klimban, from Proto-Germanic *klimbaną (“to climb, go up by clinging”), believed to be a nasalised variant of Proto-Germanic *klibaną, *klibāną (“to stick, cleave”), from Proto-Indo-European *gley- (“to stick”). Cognate with West Frisian klimme (“to climb”), Dutch klimmen (“to climb”), German klimmen (“to climb”), Old Norse klembra (“to squeeze”), Icelandic klifra (“to climb”). Related to clamber. See also clay, glue.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *gleybʰ-, climben, climban, *klimban, *klimbaną, *klibaną
Usage
Inflected Forms
climbs (present, singular)
climbing (participle, present)
climbed (past)
clomb (archaic, past)
climbed (participle, past)
clomb (archaic, participle)
clumb (archaic, participle)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
climbed (first person, past)
clomb (archaic, first person)
climbest (archaic, present)