Standard Lemma guide
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
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.
No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
verb
To grasp or snatch (at), usually feebly or ineffectually; to grope (at) with the hands, as in the dark.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Ireland, Scotland
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To search (for something).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: dialectal
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To look sullen or sad; scowl, frown.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Northern-England, Scotland
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To look (at), to stare (at).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Alteration of dialectal clam, claum (“to grope or grasp ineffectually, snatch”), from Middle English *clammen, *clemmen, from Old English clæmman, clemman, from Proto-West Germanic *klammjan, from Proto-Germanic *klamjaną. In some senses, likely influenced by clamber. Compare dialectal glaump, glamp (“to grasp, snatch at, clutch, grope", also "gulp”), Scots clam, claum (“to grope or grasp ineffectually, snatch”), Norwegian klemme (“to seize with claws”), Middle High German klemmen (“to squeeze”). Doublet of glom. Related also to English clamp.
From Middle English gloumen, glomen (“to look glum or sullen, scowl, frown at, lower”), from Old Norse glám- (in compounds), cognate with Norwegian Nynorsk glåma (“to stare”).
