Dictionary

wem en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /wɛm/

Etymology

From Middle English wem, wemme, from Old English womm (“stain, spot”), from Proto-Germanic *wammaz (“stain, spot”), from Proto-Indo-European *wemh₁- (“to spew, vomit”). Cognate with Icelandic vamm (“loss, damage”), Latin vomō (“to vomit”, verb) (whence English vomit), Ancient Greek ἐμέω (eméō, “to spew”) (English emesis), Lithuanian vémti (“to vomit”), Sanskrit वमति (vamati, “to vomit”). The sense development would be "vomit" > "stain", "fault".

Meanings

1. (UK, dialectal) A spot, stain, or mark; (by extension) a (moral) blemish or fault.
   • […] but it is a perfect illustration of the vision which haunted Blake all his days,—the vision of Paradise, an earthly Paradise in which there is neither wem nor wrinkle, which basks in the radiance of its own innocence. 1936, Blanche Mary Kelly, The Well of English:
   • Smock, climbe a-pace, that I maie see my ioyes; / Oh heauen and paradize are all but toyes / Compar'd with this sight I now behould, / Which well might keepe a man from being olde. / A prettie rysing wombe without a weame / That shone as bright as anie siluer streame ... 1593, Thomas Nashe, The Choice of Valentines:
   • That "whole art" consisted in putting together about six strophes of poesy so that the words and the tune should be welded together without joint and without wem. 1934, Ezra Pound, ABC of reading, page 39:
   • The lawe of the lord is without wem, and conuertith soulis : the witnessyng of the lord is feithful, and gyueth wisdom to litle children. 1846, William Maskell, Monumenta ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, page 8:
   • "It is even so," he added, as he gazed on the Sub-Prior with astonishment; "neither wem nor wound — not so much as a rent in his frock!" 1822, sir Walter Scott (bart [novels, collected]), Historical romances of the author of Waverley, page 513

Forms