Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A spot; scar; fault; blemish; taint.
  • To corrupt; vitiate.
  • An old form of warn.
  • noun A spot; scar; fault; blemish; taint.
  • noun The belly; the wame.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To stain; to blemish; to harm; to corrupt.
  • noun obsolete Spot; blemish; harm; hurt.
  • noun obsolete The abdomen; the uterus; the womb.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A spot; stain; mark; scar; weal; bruise.
  • noun A (moral) blemish; fault; blemish; taint.
  • noun Neglect; damage.
  • verb transitive To injure or disfigure; blemish; mark; scar.
  • verb transitive To defile; pollute; corrupt; vitiate.
  • verb transitive To violate (one's word).

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English wem, wemme, from Old English wamm ("stain, spot, scar, disgrace, defect, defilement, sin, evil, crime, injury, loss, hurt, misfortune"), from Proto-Germanic *wammaz (“stain, spot”), from Proto-Indo-European *wem- (“to spew, vomit”). Cognate with Icelandic vamm ("loss, damage"), Latin vomō ("vomit", v) (English vomit), Ancient Greek ἐμέω (eméō, "I spew") (English emesis), Lithuanian vemti ("to vomit"), Sanskrit वमति (vamati, "to vomit")

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English wemmen, from Old English wemman ("to defile, besmirch, profane, injure, ill-treat, destroy, abuse, revile"), from Proto-Germanic *wammijanan (“to stain”), from Proto-Indo-European *wem- (“to spew, vomit”).

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Examples

  • Be of good cheer, you will come off without either scar or scratch, wem or wound.

    The Fair Maid of Perth 2008

  • Ai felt saem way wem mai kitteh Mouche went ober teh rainbo brij.

    My cute innocent face - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? 2008

  • Sub – Prior with astonishment; “neither wem nor wound — not as much as a rent in his frock!”

    The Monastery 2008

  • "What if I wem to say that your good will would be sufficient?"

    Sign of Chaos Zelazny, Roger 1987

  • Also maidenhood of body without wem is common to them all, and so is birth also.

    Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus Robert Steele 1902

  • I sang "Ein Jungling liebt ein Mädchen," of Schumann, and when I came to the line, "Und wem das just passieret, dem bricht das Herz entzwei," I heard a mournful sigh.

    In the Courts of Memory, 1858 1875; from Contemporary Letters 1886

  • If you cannot arrange with Czerny to bring Carl home, he must not go at all; “trau, schau, wem!”

    Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Wallace, Lady 1866

  • While he was in the house, Anna Vassilyevna did not see Elena, and had to be content with Zoya, who waited on her very devotedly, but kept thinking to herself: '_Diesen Insarof vorziehen -- und wem?

    On the Eve Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev 1850

  • But no sooner had the knights resumed their station, than the clamour of applause was hushed into a silence, so deep and so dead, that it seemed the multitude wem afraid even to breathe.

    Ivanhoe. A Romance 1819

  • Sub-Prior as well as his chains would permit; "nay, then, I will never trust ashen shaft and steel point more -- It is even so," he added, as he gazed on the Sub-Prior with astonishment; "neither wem nor wound -- not as much as a rent in his frock!"

    The Monastery Walter Scott 1801

Comments

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  • Noun: A stain, flaw, or scar.

    October 3, 2008

  • Heeres a wench (said he) of as cleare a skin as Susanna, shee hath not a wemme on her flesh from the soale of the foote to the crowne of the head: how thinke you master doctor, will shee not serue the turne?

    - Thomas Nashe, The Unfortunate Traveller, 1594

    April 14, 2010

  • A tight ship will shine like a gem

    And gleam from its tiller to stem.

    On bright decks unblemished

    The cordage is flemished

    And sails billow white without wem.

    June 20, 2015