noun
Meaning 1
bosom
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: dialectal, obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Standard Lemma guide
barm
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
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Received-Pronunciation: /bɑːm/
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Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
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General-American: /bɑɹm/
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rhymes with -ɑː(ɹ)m
noun
Meaning 2
lap
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: dialectal, obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Meaning 3
Foam rising upon beer or other malt liquors when fermenting, used as leaven in brewing and making bread; yeast.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, dialectal, obsolete, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Meaning 4
A small, round, flat individual loaf or roll of bread.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, dialectal, obsolete, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
Meaning 5
To spurge; foam
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: dialectal, obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Meaning 6
a commercial leavening agent containing yeast cells; used to raise the dough in making bread and for fermenting beer or whiskey
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: yeast
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: leaven, leavening
Narrower terms: yeast cake, brewer's yeast, mother
History
Etymology
From Middle English barm, barme, berm, bearm, from Old English bearm (“lap; bosom”), from Proto-West Germanic *barm, from Proto-Germanic *barmaz (“lap; bosom”), from Proto-Indo-European *bher- (“to bear”). Cognate with German Barm (“lap; bosom”).
From Middle English berme, berm, from Old English beorma, from Proto-West Germanic *bermō (“yeast; barm”); related to the dialectal Low German Bärm (“yeast”), from Middle Low German barm, berm. The cake sense is possibly a shortened form of barmcake, which would be made with yeast as described in that sense, or possibly it is from the Irish bairín breac, a type of bread.
From Middle English bermen, from the noun (see above).
Across languages
Translations
3 source translations are retained for this English entry.
- Finnish: vaahto — foam rising upon beer, etc., when fermenting
- French: mousse — foam rising upon beer, etc., when fermenting
- Irish: giosta — foam rising upon beer, etc., when fermenting