whelm
/ʍɛlm/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.30 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A wooden drainpipe, a hollowed out tree trunk, turned with the cavity downwards to form an arched watercourse.
verb
To emotionally affect at an intensity in between underwhelm and overwhelm; to just satisfy or just meet expectations.
Colloquial; Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "Giue fire: ſhe is my prize, or Ocean whelme them all."
- "Still let me walk; for oft' the ſudden Gale / Ruffles the Tide, and ſhifts the dang'rous Sail, / Then ſhall the Paſſenger, too late, deplore / The whelming Billow, and the faithleſs Oar; [...]"
- "Such is the fate of ſimple Bard, / On Life's rough ocean luckleſs ſtarr'd! / Unſkilful he to note the card / Of prudent Lore, / Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, / And whelm him o'er!"
- "Deep-whelm'd beneath, in vast sepulchral caves, / Oblivion dwells amid unlabell'd graves; / The storied tomb, the laurell'd bust o'erturns, / And shakes their ashes from the mould'ring urns."
- "The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass."
- "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."
Etymology
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *kʷelp-, whelmen, *hwealmnian, *hwalb, *hwalbą
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ʍɛlm/
- British English: /ʍɛlm/