nim

nim¹ to take, steal

Etymology

The word for taking and stealing is inherited from Middle English nimen, inherited from Old English niman (“to take, accept, receive, grasp, catch”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Proto-Germanic *nemaną.^[3][7][8][1] It is cognate with Old Saxon niman, Old Frisian nima, Middle Dutch nēmen, Old High German neman, German nehmen, Old Norse nema and Gothic 𐌽𐌹𐌼𐌰𐌽 (niman).^[5][3][7][9] The OED derives it, probably, from the Indo-European base of Ancient Greek νέμω (némō, “to deal out, distribute, hold, possess”), the source of nemesis, and of Avestan nəmah- (“loan”), though it finds the change of sense hard to explain;^[5][7][10] Etymonline and Klein give the root as Proto-Indo-European *nem- (“to assign, allot; take”).^[3][10] An alternative etymology connects it with Latin emō (“to take, buy”) and Lithuanian imti (“to take”), explaining the n- as a prefix or a rhyme-form, which the OED finds unconvincing.^[5][7] The Old English verb is also the source of nimble and of numb.^[3][10][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To take, get hold of, seize: early Old English, in the Canticles of the Vespasian Psalter.^[5] Bosworth–Toller glosses niman first as to take, receive, get.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Old and Middle English this was the ordinary verb for taking, and it could also mean to make one's way, to go, a sense the OED records until 1591.^[5][2] It was replaced by take, a Scandinavian loan, and went out of general use about 1500,^[3] the OED's last record of the general sense being from 1630.^[5] The sense "to steal", which goes back to Old English,^[5] survived after the 16th century in colloquial use and thieves' slang,^[5][11] into the 19th century.^[3] Green's Dictionary of Slang finds it in Middleton's Black Book (1604),^[11] and the noun nim, a thief, is recorded in 1630, in Taylor.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to take; in cant, to steal", quoting Hudibras,^[12] and Bosworth–Toller compares the name of Shakespeare's Corporal Nym.^[6] In northern and Midland dialect nim came to mean to walk with short light steps (from 1783),^[5] and the English Dialect Dictionary records it for catching up quickly, or taking on the sly, in Scotland and the north.^[13]

Timeline

• early Old English – to take, get hold of, seize (obsolete by 1630).^[5]
• Old English – to make one's way, go (obsolete by 1591).^[5]
• Old English – to steal, pilfer; colloquial and thieves' slang after the 16th century.^[5] Green's Dictionary of Slang's first slang quotation is from 1604.^[11]
• 1622 – intransitive, to thieve (obsolete by 1763).^[5]
• 1630 – noun, a thief.^[5]
• 1783 – regional, to walk with short light steps.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (archaic) To steal or filch: Someone nimmed my purse at the fair.^[4][5][9]
2. (archaic) To thieve.^[4][5]
3. (regional) To walk with short light steps.^[5]
4. (obsolete, Old English–1630) To take, seize or get.^[5][9][2]

nim² game

Etymology

According to the OED, the name of the game is borrowed from German nimm (“take!”), the imperative of nehmen (“to take”), which is cognate with the English verb nim.^[5] The American Heritage Dictionary also gives the German origin, as a possibility,^[14] while Merriam-Webster Unabridged, Dictionary.com and Collins take the name as probably or perhaps a special use of the archaic English verb meaning to take,^[4][15][16] and the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford leave both open.^[17][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

1901, in an article by C. L. Bouton in the Annals of Mathematics, who named the game.^[5][4]

Timeline

• 1901 – a game in which two players take objects in turn from heaps.^[5][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A game for two players who take turns removing one or more objects, such as matchsticks or counters, from one of several piles, each trying to take, or to avoid taking, the last one.^[16][4][5]