Word.ws English Dictionary

barm

/bɑːm/US/bɑɹm/

barm noun: bosom.

Noun (1)

barm (plural barms)

  1. (dialectal, obsolete) bosom
  2. (dialectal, obsolete) lap

Noun (2)

barm (countable and uncountable, plural barms)

  1. (dialectal, obsolete) Foam rising upon beer or other malt liquors when fermenting, used as leaven in brewing and making bread; yeast.
    • [A]nd sometimes make the drink to bear no barm.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...
    • In 1577 yeast, called barm, is bought at 9d. the pail.1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 4, page 620
  2. (dialectal, obsolete) A small, round, flat individual loaf or roll of bread.

Verb

barm (third-person singular simple present barms, present participle barming, simple past and past participle barmed)

  1. (dialectal, obsolete) To spurge; foam

Forms of barm

Noun
pluralbarms
Verb
third-person singular presentbarms
present participlebarming
past participlebarmed
pastbarmed

Origin of barm

From Middle English barm, barme, berm, bearm, from Old English bearm (“lap; bosom”), from Proto-West Germanic *barm, from Proto-Germanic *barmaz (“lap; bosom”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to bear”). Cognate with German Barm (“lap; bosom”).

From Middle English berme, berm, from Old English beorma, from Proto-West Germanic *bermō (“yeast; barm”); related to the dialectal Low German Bärm (“yeast”), from Middle Low German barm, berm. The cake sense is possibly a shortened form of barmcake, which would be made with yeast as described in that sense, or possibly it is from the Irish bairín breac, a type of bread.

From Middle English bermen, from the noun (see above).

Words formed from barm

Phrases with barm

Words that rhyme with barm

19 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about barm

What does barm mean?
Barm means bosom.
What part of speech is barm?
Barm can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce barm?
Barm is pronounced /bɑːm/ (UK).
What is the plural of barm?
The plural of barm is barms.

Words near barm in the dictionary

  1. Barlow's syndrome
  2. Barlowe
  3. Barlowes
  4. barlowite
  5. Barlows
  6. barm
  7. barm brack
  8. barm bracks
  9. barma
  10. Barmah
  11. barmaid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: barm (page history and authors). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-barm.wav.

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