holm

holm¹ islet, river meadow

Etymology

The word for a small island is inherited from Middle English holm, also holme and hulme,^[2] inherited from Old English holm in late Old English,^[3][2] borrowed from Old Norse holmr (“islet in a bay, lake or river; meadow on the shore”),^{[4][5][6][7][8][3]} or the related Old Danish hulm.^[3][2] The Norse word comes from Proto-Germanic *hulmaz,^[3][9] the source also of Faroese hólmur (“small island”), Old Saxon holm (“hill”) and Middle Dutch holm (“islet in a river; mound”),^[9][4] and is traced to Proto-Indo-European *kel- (“to be prominent; hill”),^[3][8] as are hill and Latin columen (“top, summit”).^[9][10][11] Old English poetry had a native holm meaning "sea, wave", which the OED, like most scholars, takes for the same word: the original sense would be "hill", whence "islet" and, figuratively and obscurely, "billow" and "sea".^[4][12][3] The Medieval Latin forms holmus and hulmus are from English.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small island or islet, especially in a river or near the mainland: Old English, in manuscript C of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the annal for 902.^[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the sense to before the 12th century,^[7] and Etymonline to late Old English.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Norse word already meant both an islet and a meadow on the shore,^[4][5] and English holm was used before 1300 for flat low-lying ground by a river that floods at times.^[4][5] Layamon's Brut (about 1275) has it for a hill, a sense that did not last.^[4][12] The Middle English Dictionary also records a peninsula among its senses.^[2] The word is more frequent in Scotland and northern England,^[6][13] and survives mostly in place names across Britain, where it covers raised ground in a marsh, land in a river bend, river meadows and promontories.^[6][3][14] In the 17th century English writers also used it for a dockyard in Sweden and Denmark.^[4]

Timeline

• Old English – a small island, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.^[4]
• c. 1275 – a hill (obsolete, rare).^[4]
• before 1300 – low flat ground by a river, flooded at times.^[4][5]
• 1654 – a dockyard in Sweden or Denmark.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly British) A small island in a river or lake or near the mainland, often in place names.^[7][15][4]
2. (chiefly British) Low flat land beside a river, liable to flood; a river meadow.^[7][15][4]

holm² holly, holm oak

Etymology

The word for the holly and the holm oak is inherited from Middle English holm, a phonetic alteration of holn,^[4][16] from holin,^[7][2][5] inherited from Old English holen, also holegn, meaning holly.^[4][12][7] The Old English word is also the source of holly,^[3][4] and goes back to Proto-Germanic *hulin-.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tree in the list of Chaucer's Knight's Tale (about 1385), "As ook, fir, birch, asp, alder, holm, popler".^[2][4] The OED takes it as the holly, while the Middle English Dictionary tentatively, and the Chaucer glossaries of Skeat and Benson, read it as the holm oak.^{[4][2][17][18]}

Semantic evolution

In Middle English holm was chiefly the holly: the Promptorium Parvulorum (1440) glosses "Holme, or holy", and 15th-century parish accounts record payments for holm and ivy at Christmas.^[2] From 1552 the word was applied to the evergreen oak of the Mediterranean.^[4] From 1597, in Gerard's Herball, this tree was called the holm oak, from the likeness of its dark evergreen leaves to those of the holly.^[4][7] The sense "holly" is now obsolete except in dialect,^[4][5] and the English Dialect Dictionary records it in the south-western counties and in Sussex and Hampshire.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1385 – a tree, the holly or the holm oak, in Chaucer.^[4][2]
• 1440 – the holly.^[2]
• 1449 – holly branches bought for Christmas decoration.^[2]
• 1552 – the holm oak.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The holm oak, an evergreen oak of the Mediterranean region.^{[7][15][5][4]}
2. (dialect) The holly.^{[15][5][4][13]}

Word family

• holm oak