clem
verbnounverbattested in dialogue
- //klɛm//
To be hungry; starve.
verb
- 1
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!"
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!
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]”).
noun
- 1
slangA brick or stone.
- 2
slangOne stone (unit of mass).
- 3
slangA testicle.
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.
verb
- 1
Variant of clamAlternative form of clam (“to adhere”).
Forms
- plural
- clems
- past tense
- clemmed
- past participle
- clemmed
- present participle
- clemming
- third person singular
- clems