Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A sudden feeling of sickness, faintness, or nausea.
- n. A sudden disturbing feeling: qualms of homesickness.
- n. An uneasy feeling about the propriety or rightness of a course of action.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Illness; disease; pestilence; plague.
- n. A sudden attack of illness; a turn of faintness or suffering; a throe or throb of pain.
- n. Especially, a sudden fit or seizure of sickness at the stomach; a sensation of nausea.
- n. A scruple or twinge of conscience; compunction; uneasiness.
- n. The boding cry of a raven.
- To be sick; suffer from qualms.
- To cause pain or qualms.
Wiktionary
- n. A sickly feeling of being ill at ease; sudden queasiness.
- n. A prick of the conscience, moral scruple.
- n. An uneasy feeling of apprehension and/or doubt
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Sickness; disease; pestilence; death.
- n. A sudden attack of illness, faintness, or pain; an agony.
- n. Especially, a sudden sensation of nausea.
- n. A prick or scruple of conscience; uneasiness of conscience; compunction.
WordNet 3.0
- n. uneasiness about the fitness of an action
- n. a mild state of nausea
Etymologies
- Origin unknown.
Examples
“My only qualm is that you have a punctuation error in the first sentence – an error guaranteed to make an editor think twice about reading on.”
“My only qualm is that Angel didn't use a celebrity participant like Ray Nagin, just in case some strange complication occurred with the trick.”
“It has to be one of the most personable documentaries I have ever seen and my only qualm is that I wish that there were some way to find out how they have progressed since the surgery.”
“My only real qualm is that BB, like every action film these days, uses the BLUR!”
“I really felt all the characters as they were so well drawn and my only qualm is the significance of the pious brother Henry and as he was of no significance.”
Reader reviews of The Crimson Petal and The White by Michel Faber.
“My qualm is not with the message: We don’t tailgate.”
“The studio provided a review copy, which brings up my main qualm.”
“No," said Dawson, "or if I have, it is a mere momentary qualm which is gone before I can realise it.”
“I felt a kind of qualm of faintness and downsinking about my heart and stomach, to the dispelling of which I took a thimbleful of spirits, and, tying my red comforter about my neck, I marched briskly to the session-house.”
“I felt a kind of qualm of faintness and down-sinking about my heart and stomach, to the dispelling of which I took a thimbleful of spirits, and, tying my red comforter about my neck, I marched briskly to the session-house.”
The Life of Mansie Wauch Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘qualm’.
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Q words
Ever get stuck with the random bunch of letters and a q and not know any words? Well, maybe this will help.
quire, quais, quai, queer, quoit, quitrent, quit, quipster, question, quest, questing, quests and 208 more...
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Olde Englisc
English words of Anglo-Saxon origin.
onslaught, slain, clove, clave, thrice, nincompoop, scorn, storm, scant, lurk, beneath, atop and 143 more...
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Anglish
Words that can replace Latinates.
frosent, gainsay, fremd, inrush, frain, huru, wordbook, wordstock, byspel, elfshine, infaru, glam and 95 more...
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Especially
Being a list of words which have "especially" in their definitions.
wringing-machine, especially, device, field, scrip, hit, catch, take, buck, flip, effluvium, proselyte and 100 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 414 more...
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Anglo-Saxon/Old English
Anglo-Saxon rootwords
mote, huru, byspel, elfshine, infaru, snotor, dern, upspring, meed, lof, queem, hof and 82 more...
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Be Afraid
Scary and scared words
ascared, ugsome, qualm, trepidity, disquietude, scaremonger, scaredy pants, bugbear, scarify, jimjams, petrified, afeared and 11 more...
Prolagus You will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools.
(Giacomo Casanova) Mar 18, 2008
sionnach German for 'fog/murk'. Jan 9, 2008
uselessness I have my qualms about that particular use... Apr 5, 2007
reesetee I wonder...can you have just *one* qualm or do you have to have several? ;-) Apr 5, 2007