Etymologically
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calm

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /kɑːm/, US /kɑːm/, /kɑːlm/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English calme,[2][3] usually explained as borrowed from Middle French calme (“quiet, stillness”),[2][4] from Old Italian calma (“quiet, fair weather”),[2][4] from Late Latin cauma (“heat of the midday sun”),[2][5] from Ancient Greek καῦμα (kaûma, “burning heat, heat of the day”),[2][3][4] from kaíein “to burn”, the source of caustic.[2][4] The idea is that the midday heat was a time when everything rested and was still.[2][6] The l is thought to come from association with Latin calēre “to be hot”.[2][5][7] Barnhart and Hoad note that the English noun, adjective and verb are all recorded earlier than the French words (15th century), so the word may have come directly from Medieval or Late Latin rather than through French.[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of the sea or weather, still, without wind or agitation: 1380 in Barnhart, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius,[3] the late 14th century in Etymonline.[2] The noun, an absence of storm or wind, is about 1400,[2][3] in the Middle English Romaunt of the Rose.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word moved from weather to people: the noun was used of a peaceful manner from the early 15th century and of freedom from agitation or passion from the 1540s,[2] and the adjective of a composed mind or social conditions from the 1560s.[2][8] The verb “to become calm” (late 14th century) was followed by the transitive “to make calm” in the 1550s,[2][7] and the intransitive is now mostly used with down.[7] An absence of wind on the Beaufort scale and the region of calms in the tropics are technical senses.[9][8]

Timeline

  • 1380 – adjective, of the sea or weather.[3]
  • c. 1400 – noun, absence of wind.[2][3]
  • late 14th century – verb, to become calm.[2]
  • early 15th century – noun, a peaceful manner.[2]
  • 1540s – freedom from agitation or passion.[2]
  • 1550s – verb, to make calm.[2]
  • 1560s – adjective, of the mind.[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Still and without wind or rough water.
  2. Not excited, nervous or upset; composed.

Noun

  1. Stillness or tranquillity; peace.
  2. Weather without wind, or a wind of less than about 1 mile per hour on the Beaufort scale.

Verb

  1. To make or become calm, often with down.

Word family

  • calmly
  • calmness
  • calmingly
  • becalm
  • uncalm
  • calmy
  • caustic
  • cauterize

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin