Obs. exc. dial. Also kam, (7 kamme). [Adopted from Celtic: in Welsh cam crooked, bent, bowed, awry, wrong, false; Gael. cam crooked, bent, blind of one eye; Manx cam (as in Gaelic); Ir. cam:—OIr. camm crooked, repr. an OCeltic *cambo-s, as in the proper name Cambodunum ‘crooked town.’ In English probably from Welsh, and no doubt in oral use long before the 16th c. when first found in literature; the derived form cammed is in the Promptorium.]
A. adj. Crooked, twisted, bent from the straight. Hence mod. dial. Perverse, obstinate, ‘cross.’
a. 1600. Hooker, Serm., iii. Wks. II. 698. His mind is perverse, kam [ed. 1676 cam], and crooked.
1642. Sc. Pasquils (1868), 117. Cam is thy name, Cam are thyne eyies and wayes … Cam are thy lookes, thyne eyies thy ways bewrayes.
1853. Akerman, Wiltsh. Tales, 138. As cam and as obstinate as a mule.
1862. Hughes, in Macm. Mag., V. 236/2. As cam as a peg.
B. adv. Away from the straight line, awry, askew (also fig.). Clean cam (kam), ‘crooked, athwart, awry, cross from the purpose’ (J.); cf. KIM KAM.
1579. Tomson, Calvin’s Serm. Tim., 909/1. We speake in good earnest, and meane not … to say, walk on, behaue your selues manfully: and go cleane kam our selues like Creuises.
1607. Shaks., Cor., III. i. 304. Sicin. This is cleane kamme. Brut. Meerely awry.
1611. Cotgr., s.v. Contrefoil, The wrong way, cleane contrarie, quite kamme.
1708. Motteux, Rabelais, V. xxvii. Here they go quite kam, and act clean contrary to others.
1755. Johnson, Kam, crooked.
