Word.ws English Dictionary

holme

holme is the alternative form of holm.

Meaning of holm

Noun (1)

holm (plural holms)

  1. Small island, islet.
  2. An island in a lake, river or estuary; an eyot.
  3. (Orkney, Scotland, dialectal, chiefly West Yorkshire(?)) Any small island, but especially one near a larger island or the mainland, sometimes with holly bushes; an islet, often in Norse-influenced place-names.
  4. Rich flat land near a river, prone to flooding.
    • A Brownie once lived with Maxwell, Laird of Dalswinton, and was particularly attached to the Laird's daughter, the comeliest lass in all the holms of Nithsdale.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume II, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 170
    Synonyms:
    floodplain, bottomland, bottoms, river-meadow

Noun (2)

holm (plural holms)

  1. (obsolete outside UK dialects) Common holly (Ilex aquifolium).
    • The fruitfull Oliue, and the Platane round, / The caruer Holme, the Maple, ſeeldom inward ſound.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 5
  2. A holm oak (Quercus ilex), a common evergreen oak of Europe.

See all 7 meanings of holm

Proper noun capitalized: Holme

Holme

  1. A village and civil parish in Huntingdonshire district, Cambridgeshire (OS grid ref TL1987).
  2. A village and civil parish in Westmorland and Furness, Cumbria, previously in South Lakeland district (OS grid ref SD5278).
  3. A hamlet in Messingham parish, North Lincolnshire district, Lincolnshire (OS grid ref SE9206).
  4. A small village in Holme Valley parish, Kirklees borough, West Yorkshire (OS grid ref SE1006).
  5. A river in West Yorkshire, England, which flows into the River Colne at Huddersfield.

Forms of holme

pluralholmes

Origin of holme

From Middle English holm (“an island”), from Old Norse holmr, from Proto-Germanic *hulmaz.

Words formed from holme

Questions about holme

What does holme mean?
Holme means a village and civil parish in Huntingdonshire district, Cambridgeshire (OS grid ref TL1987).
What is holme the alternative form of?
Holme is the alternative form of holm.
What part of speech is holme?
Holme is a proper noun.

Words near holme in the dictionary

  1. holmberry
  2. Holmbridge
  3. holmbushite
  4. Holmby
  5. Holmdel
  6. holme
  7. Holme Abbey
  8. Holme East Waver
  9. Holme Hale
  10. Holme Low
  11. Holme Pierrepont

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: holme (page history and authors); Holme (page history and authors); holm (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.

Last updated:

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