qualm

Definition of qualm

6 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

A feeling of apprehension, doubt, fear etc.

“[W]ho vvould not rather Sleep Quietly upon a Hammock, vvithout either Cares in his Head, or Crudities in his Stomach, then lye Carking upon a Bed of State, vvith the Qualms and Tvvinges that accompany Surfeits and Exceſs?”
“"Do you have any particular qualms about leaving Pencey?" / "Oh, I have a few qualms, all right. Sure … but not too many. Not yet, anyway.[…]"”
“Jem’s face showed brief indecision on the ethics of withholding his own dime, but his innate courtesy won and he shifted his dime to his pocket. I did likewise with no qualms.”
“Opponents of those privatization plans hoped to use Mr. [Neil] Armstrong's qualms as ammunition to block the White House initiatives, and they asked for more public statements.”
“Questions of bad taste have hung around Dear Evan Hansen since it debuted on Broadway in 2016, though such qualms were mostly drowned out by praise for Platt’s visceral live performance and the catchy Broadway-by-way-of-Christian-rock tunes from wunderkind songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (who are also responsible for the toe-tapping numbers from The Greatest Showman).”

See all 6 definitions

noun

A feeling of apprehension, doubt, fear etc.

“[W]ho vvould not rather Sleep Quietly upon a Hammock, vvithout either Cares in his Head, or Crudities in his Stomach, then lye Carking upon a Bed of State, vvith the Qualms and Tvvinges that accompany Surfeits and Exceſs?”
“"Do you have any particular qualms about leaving Pencey?" / "Oh, I have a few qualms, all right. Sure … but not too many. Not yet, anyway.[…]"”
“Jem’s face showed brief indecision on the ethics of withholding his own dime, but his innate courtesy won and he shifted his dime to his pocket. I did likewise with no qualms.”
“Opponents of those privatization plans hoped to use Mr. [Neil] Armstrong's qualms as ammunition to block the White House initiatives, and they asked for more public statements.”
“Questions of bad taste have hung around Dear Evan Hansen since it debuted on Broadway in 2016, though such qualms were mostly drowned out by praise for Platt’s visceral live performance and the catchy Broadway-by-way-of-Christian-rock tunes from wunderkind songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (who are also responsible for the toe-tapping numbers from The Greatest Showman).”
A sudden sickly feeling; queasiness.
A prick of the conscience; a moral scruple, a pang of guilt.

“This lawyer has no qualms about saving people who are on the wrong side of the law.”
(UK, archaic, dialectal)Mortality; plague; pestilence.
(UK, archaic, dialectal)A calamity or disaster.

verb

(intransitive)To have a sickly feeling.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

Perhaps from Middle English qualm, cwalm (“death, sickness, plague”), which is from Old English cwealm (West Saxon: "death, disaster, plague"), ūtcualm (Anglian: "utter destruction"), from Proto-West Germanic *kwalm (“killing, death,…

See full etymology

Perhaps from Middle English qualm, cwalm (“death, sickness, plague”), which is from Old English cwealm (West Saxon: "death, disaster, plague"), ūtcualm (Anglian: "utter destruction"), from Proto-West Germanic *kwalm (“killing, death, destruction”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH- (“to stick, pierce; pain, injury, death”), whence also quell. Although the sense development is possible, this has the problem that there are no attestations in intermediate senses before the appearance of "pang of apprehension, etc." in the 16th century. The alternative etymology is from Dutch kwalm or German Qualm (“steam, vapor, mist”) earlier “daze, stupefaction”, which is from the root of German quellen (“to stream, well up”). The sense “feeling of faintness” is from 1530; “uneasiness, doubt” from 1553; “scruple of conscience” from 1649.

Words you can make from qualm

13 playable · top: QUA (12 pts)

Best play qua 12 points

4-letter words

3 words

3-letter words

3 words

2-letter words

6 words

Hooks

2 extensions · 2 back

A single letter you can add to qualm to make another valid word.