Dictionary

clem en · VERB · etymology 1

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio
• /klɛm/

Etymology

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]”).

Meanings

1. (UK, dialectal, intransitive, transitive) To be hungry; starve.
   • "[…] 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!" 1889, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, Between Two Loves, Ch. VI, p. 110:
   • 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! 1919, Stanley J. Weyman, “IX. Old Things”, in The Great House:

Forms

clem en · NOUN · etymology 2

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio
• /klɛm/

Etymology

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.

Meanings

1. (Geordie, Teesside, qualifier:Northumberland, slang) A brick or stone.
2. (qualifier:chiefly Hartlepool; plural clem; chiefly Hartlepool; plural clem, slang) One stone (unit of mass).
3. (Geordie, slang, vulgar) A testicle.

Forms

Synonyms

clemmy

clem en · VERB · etymology 3

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio
• /klɛm/

Meanings

1. (alt-of, alternative) Alternative form of clam (“to adhere”).
   alt of clam

Forms