Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Silence: also used as an exclamation to command silence.
  • Silent; glum.
  • An obsolete or dialectal preterit of climb.
  • To handle roughly.
  • To clutch.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • interjection obsolete Silence; hush.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Silence.
  • interjection obsolete Silence; hush
  • adjective Silent; glum.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English clum, clom ("silence"), perhaps for *clomen (“stiff, numb”), past participle of *cleomen ("to be stiff"; compare Middle English acleomen ("to be stiff")), related to Middle English clumsen, clomsen ("to be stiff, be numb"), Dutch kleumen ("to be stiff from cold"); or perhaps representing Old English clom, clam, clamm ("band, bond, fetter, chain, grip, grasp"). More at clam.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word clum.

Examples

  • After Jeff cut off Dexter's curly locks, I gathered the clipped clum ...

    Alexandra Clyburn: Organic Gardening 2008

  • After Jeff cut off Dexter's curly locks, I gathered the clipped clum ...

    Alexandra Clyburn: Organic Gardening 2008

  • I've always been intrigued by the essentially clum...

    Posthuman Blues Mac 2006

  • I've always been intrigued by the essentially clum...

    Posthuman Blues Mac 2006

  • Colour stormed into her face and she grabbed clum sily for her towel, holding it in front of her defensively, just as if there was an inch of her that he'd left undis covered.

    The Tycoon's Mistress Craven, Sara 2000

  • Colour stormed into her face and she grabbed clum sily for her towel, holding it in front of her defensively, just as if there was an inch of her that he'd left undis covered.

    The Tycoon's Mistress Craven, Sara 2000

  • While it was still some paces away, its thick-fingered hands, almost as clum - sy as Furtig's own when he tried to use some delicate lair tool, thumbed something at throat level.

    Breed to Come Norton, Andre 1972

  • I clum in the window so's I wouldn't freeze while I was waiting for Cherry, and I guess I went to sleep.

    At the Little Brown House Ruth Alberta Brown

  • He went off a little ways fum de house en clum a 'simmon stump en got up dar en' gun ter holler.

    The Book of Stories for the Story-teller Fanny E. Coe

  • "Mom locked me in a room, but I opened a window an 'clum out."

    Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes The Quest of a Summer Vacation Stella M. Francis

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.