Forms: 1 cumb, (? 3 comb), 6 coome, 6– coombe, combe, 7– comb, 8– coomb, (9 coom). [In OE., cumb masc. ‘small valley, hollow’ occurs in the charters, in the descriptions of local boundaries in the south of England; also in numerous place-names which still exist, as Batancumb Batcombe, Brancescumb Branscombe, Eastcumb Eastcomb, Sealtcumb Salcombe, Wincelcumb Winchcombe, etc. As a separate word it is not known in ME. literature, but has survived in local use, in which it is quite common in the south of England: see sense b. In literature coomb appears in the second half of the 16th c., probably introduced from local use; a century later, it was still treated by Ray as a local southern word. OE. cumb is usually supposed to be of British origin: modern Welsh has cwm (kum) in the same sense, also in composition in place-names as -cwm, -gwm, and in syntactic combination as Cwm Bochlwyd. A large number of place-names beginning with Cum-, especially frequent in Cumberland, Dumfriesshire, and Strathclyde, as Cumwhitton, Cumdivock, Cumlongan, Cumloden, appear to be thus formed. Welsh cwm represents an earlier cumb, OCeltic *kumbos. The OE. word might however be an obvious application of cumb, COOMB1, to a physical feature, though there is no trace of any such application of the cognate German words on the continent; in any case, if the Saxons and Angles found a British cumb applied to a hollow in the ground, its coincidence with their own word for ‘basin, bowl, deep vessel’ would evidently favor its acceptance and common use. This might further be strengthened, after the Norman Conquest, by the existence of a F. combe ‘petite vallée, pli de terrain, lieu bas entouré de collines’ (Littré, 12th c.), cognate with Pr., Sp. and north It. comba, for which also a Celtic origin has been claimed. See Diez, Thurneysen, Littré. The phonetic history is the same as in COOMB1; in composition (in names of old formation) -kūm has sunk to -kəm.]
a. A deep hollow or valley: in OE. charters; not known in ME.; but occurring from the 16th c. in the general sense of valley, and more especially of a deep narrow valley, clough, or cleugh.
770. in Birch, Cartul. Sax., I. 290 (No. 204). Of þære brigge in cumb; of þam cumbe in ale beardes ac. Ibid. (847), II. 34 (No. 451). Fram smalan cumbes heafde to græwan stane.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, II. xxiv. 175. Foxeglove … groweth … in darke shadowie valleys or coombes where there has been myning for iron and smithes cole. Ibid., III. xii. 332. Gentian groweth … in certayne coomes or valleys.
1586. J. Hooker, Girald. Irel., in Holinshed, II. 169/2. A vallie or a combe … of a great length, betweene two hils.
1613. W. Browne, Brit. Past., II. iii. The walkes and arbours in these fruitfull coombes.
1799. Southey, Lett. (1856), I. 79. Imagine a vale, almost narrow enough to be called a coombe, running between two ranges of hills.
1872. Tennyson, Gareth & Lynette, 1162. Anon they past a narrow comb wherein Were slabs of rock with figures.
b. spec. In the south of England, a hollow or valley on the flank of a hill; esp. one of the characteristic hollows or small valleys closed in at the head, on the sides of and under the chalk downs; also, a steep short valley running up from the sea coast.
1674. Ray, S. & E. C. Words, Combe: Devon. Corn. … Vallis utrinque collibus obsita, Skinner.
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 21. The banks of the rivers Taw and Mole, as well as the combes or hollows branching in … from them.
1855. M. Arnold, Poems, Youth of Nature. Far to the South the heath Still blows in the Quantock coombs.
1862. Ansted, Channel Isl., I. v. (ed. 2), 103. There is here a pretty coomb, or semicircular depression of the surface.
1879. Dowden, Southey, iii. 64. Roaming among the vales and woods, the coombes and cliffs of Devon.
1886. Besant, Childr. Gibeon, II. xii. Where the sea mists sweep up the narrow coombe.
c. In the south of Scotland and in the English Lake district, ‘[in] such hills as are scooped out on one side in form of a crescent, the bosom of the hill, or that portion which lies within the lunated verge, is always denominated the coomb.’ (Hogg, Queen’s Wake, 1813, Notes xxiv.)
That the word is native in Scotland is doubtful: Jamieson’s Dictionary knows nothing of it beyond Hogg’s assertion, and it is not in common use. But in Cumberland it appears in some local names, as Gillercombe, the great hollow above Sour Milk Gill in Borrowdale, and as a separate word in Glaramara Combe, Langdale Combe.
1813. Hogg, Queen’s Wake, 223. The dark cock bayed above the coomb Throned mid the wavy fringe of gold.
1872. Jenkinson, Guide Eng. Lakes (1879), 219. A small stream which flows from the Comb—the large opening scooped out of Glaramara.
