Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A game in which players in turn remove small objects from a collection, such as matchsticks arranged in rows, and attempt to take, or avoid taking, the last one.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The margosa. See Melia. Also spelled neem.
  • To take; take in the hands; Jay hold of, in order to move, carry, or use.
  • To seize; seize upon; take away; remove; take unlawfully; filch; steal.
  • To conduct; lead.
  • To take to one's self; receive; accept; have.
  • To take: used in phrases corresponding in sense and nearly in form to ‘take the road,’ ‘take leave,’ ‘take advice,’ ‘take care,’ etc.
  • To begin.
  • To take; betake one's self; go.
  • To steal.

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

  • transitive verb obsolete To take; to steal; to filch.

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

  • verb obsolete, transitive To take (in all senses); to seize.
  • verb obsolete, intransitive To take one's way; to go.
  • verb archaic, slang, transitive To filch, steal.
  • verb intransitive To walk with short, quick strides; trip along.
  • noun A game in which players take turns removing objects from heaps.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun game in which matchsticks are arranged in rows and players alternately remove one or more of them; in some versions the object is to take the last remaining matchstick on the table and in other versions the object is to avoid taking the last remaining matchstick on the table

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Perhaps from German nimm, second person sing. imperative of nehmen, to take, from Middle High German nemen, from Old High German neman; see nem- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English nimen ("to take"), from Old English niman ("to take"), from Proto-Germanic *nemanan (“to take”), from Proto-Indo-European *neme- (“to give or take ones due”). Cognate with West Frisian nimme ("to take"), Dutch nemen ("to take"), German nehmen ("to take"), Danish nemme ("to learn, grasp"). Related to numb, nimble.

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Examples

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  • JM watches the antics of the nigmenogs as they nim from the citizens

    August 8, 2010