clem

See also: Clem, Clém, and Clem.

English

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /klɛm/
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Rhymes: -ɛm

Etymology 1

Inherited from Middle English *clemmen, *clammen, from Old English clemman, clæmman (“to press, surround”), from Proto-West Germanic *klammjan (“to squeeze”).

Cognate with Dutch klemmen (“to jam, pinch, stick”), German klemmen (“to jam, clamp; to be stuck, stick [to a surface]”).

Alternative forms

clam

Verb

clem (third-person singular simple present clems, present participle clemming, simple past and past participle clemmed)

(UK, dialect, transitive or intransitive) To be hungry; starve.
- 1889, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, Between Two Loves, Ch. VI, p. 110:
  " […] Here he's back home again, and without work, and without a penny, and thou knows t' little one and I were pretty well clemmed to death when thou got us a bit o' bread and meat last night. We were that!"
- 1919, Stanley J. Weyman, “IX. Old Things”, in The Great House:
  Who are half clemmed from year’s end to year’s end, and see no close to it, no hope, no finish but the pauper’s deals!

References

The Dictionary of the Scots Language

Etymology 2

From Old English clām (“paste, mortar, mud, clay, poultice”), from Proto-West Germanic *klaim, equivalent to cloam. Similar linguistic development led to the Northumbrian pronunciation of hyem, equivalent to the RP home.

Noun

clem (plural clems)

(Northumberland, Geordie, Teesside, slang) A brick or stone.
(chiefly Hartlepool, slang, plural clem) One stone (unit of mass).
(Geordie, vulgar, slang) A testicle.

Synonyms

clemmy

References

“clem”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Etymology 3

Verb

clem (third-person singular simple present clems, present participle clemming, simple past and past participle clemmed)

Alternative form of clam (“to adhere”)

Anagrams

ECML