Wame

Sc. and north. Forms: 5–6 wayme, 6 weyme, 6–7 weame, 6 waymb, wamb(e, 7 weamb, 7–8 wem, wemb, 8 weme, weem, wyme, 9 waim, 7– weam, 4– wame. For mod. dial. forms see Eng. Dial. Dict. [Northern form of WOMB.]

  1.  The belly, abdomen: = WOMB in obsolete senses. Cf. BELLY sb. 1–3.

c. 1425.  Wyntoun, Cron., III. 45. Þan Ayot tit out smertly His suerde … And put it in his wayme sa fast Qwhil hilt and plumat bath in past.

14[?].  Nom., in Wr.-Wülcker, 677/14. Hic venter, Hic alvuus, a wame.

1500–20.  Dunbar, Poems, xxvi. 92. The fowll monstir Glutteny, Off wame vnsasiable and gredy.

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, VIII. Prol. 138. Sum wald haue welth at thair will, and sum thare wame fow. Ibid., XI. xv. 105. His taill, that on hys ryg befor tymes lay, Vnder hys waymb [he] lattis fall abasitly.

15[?].  Sir Andrew Barton, lvi. in Child, Ballads, IV. 505/2. Then Horsley with a broode-headed arrowe, Stroke then Girdon throughe the weame.

1533.  Bellenden, Livy, II. xiv. (S.T.S.), I. 184. Þare hail sollicitude … was direkkit to na vthir fyne, bot alanerlie for the plesere of þe wame.

1566.  Burgh Rec. Edin. (1875), III. 226. The saidis flescheouris pullis the haill [sheep] skyn fra the hals doun to the taill throw al the wambe thairof.

1785.  Burns, Scotch Drink, v. Food fills the wame, an’ keeps us livin.

1817.  Scott, Rob Roy, xxxi. It would be a daft-like thing to see me wi’ my fat wame in a short Hieland coat.

1819.  W. Tennant, Papistry Storm’d (1827), 63. At Diston’s feet he lichtet fair, Wayme uppermost, and wamblit there.

a. 1894.  Stevenson, St. Ives, xxxvi. (1898), 310. He’s in bed this hour past with a spoonful of peppermint in his little wame.

  phrase.  1824.  Scott, Redgauntlet, let. xi. But when he tauld his story, he got but the worst word in his wame—thief, beggar, and dyvour, were the saftest terms.

  b.  The womb, uterus; = BELLY sb. 7. † Great wame pred. phr. = great (with child).

c. 1425.  Wyntoun, Cron., V. 1878. Gret wayme wiþe barne þe lady was.

1456.  Sir G. Haye, Law Arms (S.T.S.), 40. [He] was in his moderis wame quhen his fader deid.

1508.  Dunbar, Tua Mariit Wemen, 131. Quhen that caribald carll wald clym on my wambe.

1787.  W. Taylor, Sc. Poems, 35 (E.D.D.). Man naked comes frae Minnie’s wyme.

  c.  (See quot.)

1847.  Stoddart, Angler’s Comp., 161. Salmon-roe as a bait for angling with … is either cured entire, that is, as it is taken from the fish in the form of what is provincially termed the waim; or … reduced to a paste.

  † 2.  In the 17th c. the dial. word seems to have been adopted (in the forms wem, wemb, weamb) in southern use as a jocular substitute for ‘belly.’

1611.  L. Barry, Ram Alley, V. i. H 3 b. I will home,… and drinke some Aquauita To sweeten breath, and keepe my weame from wambling.

1651.  H. More, Enthus. Tri. (1656), L 2. Agrippa’s Cur sure kennels in thy weamb, Thou yelpest so and barkest in a dream.

1691.  Long Vacation, 6. If not their Purse, their Wems they fill.

1700.  T. Brown, trans. Fresny’s Amusem., Lond., 37. Stuffing their Wembs at Churchings.

1710.  Addison, Whig Examiner, No. 4, ¶ 12. He clapped his hand to his sword, and told him, were he a man … he would have run him through the wemb.

1719.  Ozell, trans. Misson’s Trav. Eng., 105. For two and thirty Days they satisfy’d the Decree of the Oracle, without being oblig’d to expose any human Creature to the Monster’s Wem.

1720.  Swift, Descr. Irish Feast, Misc. 1735, V. 17. A Blow on the Weam.

1764.  T. Brydges, Homer Travest. (1797), II. 417. And in his weem he felt a motion As if he’d ta’en a purging potion.

  3.  transf. The cavity, or the protuberant part of a thing: = BELLY sb. 11, 12.

a. 1765.  Northumberland betrayed by Douglas, xxi. in Child, Ballads, III. 412/2. Shee let him see thorrow the weme of her ring.

1816.  Scott, Antiq., vii. And here or yonder—at the back o’ a dyke, in a wreath o’ snaw, or in the wame o’ a wave, what signifies how the auld gaberlunzie dies?

  † 4.  The belly-piece of a fur-skin. Obs. rare. Cf. WOMB.

1374.  Exch. Rolls Scot., II. 466. In empcione de xlij wamys de menyvaire.

  5.  Comb.: wame-ill † (a) an epidemic disease affecting the stomach; (b) = STOMACH-ACHE.

c. 1500.  Auchinleck Chron. (1819), 4. Þe wame Ill was so violent, þ^t thar deit ma þ^t ȝere þan euir thar deit ouder euir that deit ouder in postilens.

a. 1585.  Montgomerie, Flyting, 318. The weam-eill, the wild-fire, the vomit and the vees.

1829.  Brockett, N. C. Gloss., Wame-ill, an ache or pain in the intestines.