Word.ws English Dictionary

arm

UK/ɑːm//ɑɹm/

arm noun: the portion of the upper human appendage, from the shoulder to the wrist and sometimes including the hand.

Noun (1)

arm (plural arms)

  1. The portion of the upper human appendage, from the shoulder to the wrist and sometimes including the hand.
    • She stood with her right arm extended and her palm forward to indicate “Stop!”
    • When Timothy and Julia hurried up the staircase to the bedroom floor, where a considerable commotion was taking place, Tim took Barry Leach with him. He had him gripped firmly by the arm, since he felt it was not safe to let him loose, and he had no immediate idea what to do with him.1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 19, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
  2. The extended portion of the upper limb, from the shoulder to the elbow.
    • The arm and forearm are parts of the upper limb in the human body.
  3. A limb, or locomotive or prehensile organ, of an invertebrate animal.
    • the arms of an octopus
  4. The part of a piece of clothing that covers the arm.
    • […] one arm of this jacket streamed behind him like the broidered arm of a huzzar’s surcoat.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “'”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 485
    • […] he noticed that a dark stain had appeared under the arm of her grey silk dress.1970, J. G. Farrell, Troubles, New York: Knopf, published 1971, page 340
    Synonyms:
    sleeve
  5. A long, narrow, more or less rigid part of an object extending from the main part or centre of the object, such as the armrest of an armchair, a crane, a pair of spectacles or a pair of compasses.
    • The robot arm reached out and placed the part on the assembly line.
    • I accidentally sat on my glasses and bent one of the arms.
  6. A bay or inlet off a main body of water.
    • Shelburne Bay is an arm of Lake Champlain.
  7. A branch of an organization.
    • the cavalry arm of the military service
    • Congress has asked the Government Accountability Office, its investigative arm, to review the workplace complaints raised by air marshals, said Charles Young, a spokesman for the office.2018 April 25, Ron Nixon, “Scandals and Investigations, but Few Arrests, for Air Marshals Program”, in The New York Times
  8. (figuratively) Power; might; strength; support.
    • the arm of the law
    • the secular arm
  9. (slang) A pitcher
    • The team needs to sign another arm in the offseason.
  10. One of the two parts of a chromosome.
  11. A group of patients in a medical trial.
  12. (South Africa, slang) A quantity of dagga leaves rolled up in paper into a thick cylinder.
    • They scored an arm of dagga and some speed and then raced away.2014, Malcolm Kohll, Good Hope, page 43

Verb (1)

arm (third-person singular simple present arms, present participle arming, simple past and past participle armed)

  1. (obsolete) To take by the arm; to take up in one's arms.
    • And make him with our pikes and partisans / A grave: come, arm him.1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
    • Arm your prize; / I know you will not lose him.1613–1614 (date written), John Fletcher, William Shak[e]speare, The Two Noble Kinsmen: […], London: […] Tho[mas] Cotes, for Iohn Waterson; […], published 1634, →OCLC, (please specify the page)...

Adjective (1)

arm (comparative armer or more arm, superlative armest or most arm)

  1. (Scotland, UK, dialectal) Poor; lacking in riches or wealth.
  2. (Scotland, UK, dialectal) To be pitied; pitiful; wretched.

Noun (2)

arm (plural arms)

  1. (usually) A weapon.
    • A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.1789, Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
    • The next thing I laid hold of was a brace of pistols, and as I already had a powder horn and bullets, I felt myself well supplied with arms.1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC
  2. (in plural) Heraldic bearings or insignia.
    • The Duke's arms were a sable gryphon rampant on an argent field.
  3. (in plural, obsolete) War; hostilities; deeds or exploits of war.

Verb (2)

arm (third-person singular simple present arms, present participle arming, simple past and past participle armed)

  1. (transitive) To supply with armour or (later especially) weapons.
    • The king armed his knights with swords and shields.
    • They were arming them with spears and shields, putting iron halfhelms on their heads, and arraying them along the inner wall, a rank of snowy sentinels. "Lord Winter has joined us with his levies," one of the sentries [said].2015, George R. R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons, Bantam, →ISBN, page 593
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To supply with the equipment, knowledge, authority, or other tools needed for a particular task; to furnish with capability; to equip.
    • thou getteſt no more of me.
      For I am ſure thy Office doth not arme thee with ſuch authoritie.1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act I
    • arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Peter 4:1
  3. (transitive) To prepare (a tool, weapon, or system) for action; to activate.
    • Remember to arm the alarm system before leaving for work.
  4. (intransitive, or system) To become prepared for action; to activate.
    • Torpedoes were loosed, but the range was too short for them to actually arm, and they bounced harmlessly off the ship as it cut loose with its secondary and antiaircraft guns, smashing anything that it could see.2021 March 10, Drachinifel, 14:43 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - The Big Night Battle: Night 1 (IJN 3(?) : 2 USN), archived from the original on 17 Oct 2022
  5. (transitive) To cover or furnish with a plate, or with whatever will add strength, force, security, or efficiency.
    • to arm the hilt of a sword; to arm a hook in angling
  6. (intransitive) To take up weapons; to arm oneself.
    • The sergeant sent out an order to arm the team for the next mission.
    • Are you arming, comrade Atheists?
      Are you arming for the fray?1974 February 2, Igor S. V. de Goldilox-Goldilox, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, volume 1, number 32, page 14
  7. (transitive) To fit (a magnet) with an armature.

Noun (3) capitalized: ARM

ARM (countable and uncountable, plural ARMs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of accelerated reply mail, a service of the United States Postal Service.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of adjustable rate mortgage.

Proper noun capitalized: ARM

ARM

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Acorn RISC Machine or Advanced RISC Machine.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Australian Republic Movement.

Adjective (2) capitalized: Arm

Arm

  1. (abbreviation) Abbreviation of Armenian.

arm meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

arm in Hindi

upper appendage from shoulder to wrist
बांह bā̃h, बाँह bā̃h, भुजा bhujā
to supply with armour or weapons
शस्त्र युक्त करना śastra yukt karnā

arm in Tamil

upper appendage from shoulder to wrist
கை kai

arm in Urdu

upper appendage from shoulder to wrist
بازو bāzū

arm in Bengali

upper appendage from shoulder to wrist
বাহু bahu
More languagesFewer languages
arm in Telugu
ముంజేయి muñjēyi, ఆయుఇధం āyuidhaṁ
arm in Malayalam
കൈ kai
arm in Punjabi
ਬਾਂਹ bā̃h, بان٘ہہ bāṉh
arm in Gujarati
બાહુ bāhu
arm in Odia
ବାହୁ, ବାହୁକୁ
arm in Sanskrit
बाहु bāhu, ईर्म īrma
arm in Sinhala
බාහුව bāhuwa, අත ata
arm in Assamese
বাহু bahu
arm in Nepali
पाखुरा pākhurā
arm in Tagalog
braso, bisig
arm in Arabic
ذِرَاع ḏirāʕ, سِلَاح silāḥ, سَلَّحَ sallaḥa
arm in Malay
lengan
arm in Indonesian
lengan, senjata
arm in Persian
بازو bâzu, دست dast, سِلاح selâh, مسلح کردن mosallah kardan
arm in Thai
แขน kɛ̌ɛn, อาวุธ aa-wút, ติดอาวุธ dtìt aa-wút
arm in Vietnamese
cánh tay, tay, vũ khí, vũ trang
arm in Myanmar
လက် lak

Examples of arm in a sentence

  • Samad made a grab for the boy and caught him by the arm of his shirt.2000, Zadie Smith, White Teeth, London: Hamish Hamilton, →ISBN, page 82:
  • To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 52:1:
  • [God] directed them to choose out three hundred only, and, arming them with nothing but trumpets and lamps, to send them by night into the camp of the Midianites.1806, William turner, An Abstract of the History of the Bible ... With questions for examination, etc, page 43:
  • Picture taking soothed support troops' anxieties twice over, empowering them as they navigated a strange environment, and arming them with proof that they really had served in a war.2011, Meredith H. Lair, Armed with Abundance: Consumerism & Soldiering in the Vietnam War, Univ of North Carolina Press, →ISBN, page 215:

All 40 example sentences with arm

Synonyms of arm

Forms of arm

Noun
pluralarms
pluralARMs
Verb
third-person singular presentarms
present participlearming
past participlearmed
pastarmed
Adjective
comparativearmer
comparativemore arm
superlativearmest
superlativemost arm

Past tense of arm: armed

Plural of arm: arms

Origin of arm

From Middle English arm, from Old English earm (Anglian arm), from Proto-West Germanic *arm, from Proto-Germanic *armaz (“arm”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂(e)rmos (“a fitting, joint; arm, forequarter”), a suffixed form of *h₂er- (“to join, fit together”). Cognates Akin to Dutch arm, German Arm, Yiddish אָרעם (orem), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish arm. Indo-European cognates include Latin armus (“the uppermost part of the arm, shoulder”), Bulgarian рамо (ramo), Polish ramię, Serbo-Croatian rȁme, Armenian արմունկ (armunk, “elbow”), Ancient Greek ἁρμός (harmós, “joint, shoulder”) and ἅρμα (hárma, “wagon, chariot”), Avestan 𐬀𐬭𐬨𐬀 (arma), Old Persian [script needed] (arma).

From Middle English arm (“poor, wretched”), from Old English earm (“poor, miserable, pitiful, wretched”), from Proto-West Germanic *arm, from Proto-Germanic *armaz (“poor”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁erm- (“poor, ill”). Cognates Akin to Dutch arm (“poor”), German arm (“poor”), Yiddish אָרעם (orem, “poor”), Swedish arm (“poor”).

Back-formation from arms (plural), from Middle English armes, from Old French armes, from Latin arma (“weapons”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂er-mo-, a suffixed form of *h₂er- (“to fit together”), hence ultimately cognate with etymology 1.

Words formed from arm

Phrases with arm

130 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with arm

19 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about arm

What does arm mean?
Arm means the portion of the upper human appendage, from the shoulder to the wrist and sometimes including the hand.
What is arm in Hindi?
Arm in Hindi is बांह (bā̃h), बाँह (bā̃h), भुजा (bhujā). See Arm meaning in Hindi.
How do you use arm in a sentence?
Samad made a grab for the boy and caught him by the arm of his shirt.
What part of speech is arm?
Arm can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce arm?
Arm is pronounced /ɑːm/ (UK).
What is the plural of arm?
The plural of arm is arms.

Words near arm in the dictionary

  1. Arlo
  2. Arlon
  3. Arlt
  4. Arlts
  5. Arlyssa
  6. arm
  7. arm ball
  8. arm balls
  9. arm bone
  10. arm bones
  11. arm candy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: arm (page history and authors); ARM (page history and authors); Arm (page history and authors); arm (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-arm.wav.

Cite this entry: “arm.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/arm. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.