Word.ws English Dictionary

hummel

Syllables: hum·mel/ˈhʌm(ə)l/

hummel noun: a stag that has failed to grow antlers; a cow that has not developed horns.

hummel: a stag that has failed to grow antlers; a cow that has not developed horns
Image: Antoine-Louis Barye, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

hummel (plural hummels)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland, also, attributive) A stag that has failed to grow antlers; a cow that has not developed horns.
    • A pure Aberdeenshire heifer was served with a pure Teeswater bull, to whom she had a first-cross calf. The following season, the same cow was served with a pure Aberdeenshire bull; the produce was a cross calf, which at two years old had very long horns, the parents both hummel.1850 January, “[Quarterly Summary of the Improvements and Discoveries in the Medical Sciences. Anatomy and Physiology.] On the Fœtus in Utero, as Inoculating the Maternal with the Peculiarities of...
    • A little hillock gave me ample concealment and an excellent rest for my rifle; and there I reposed as hinds and little stags filed by. First came the wary old hind, looking sharply about her; then a little stag, indifferent to consequences; then more hinds and calves; and last of all the great...1872 February, “An Old Mountaineer” [pseudonym], “Deer-stalking in the Highlands”, in Baily’s Monthly Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, volume XXI, number 144, London: A. H. Baily & Co., →OCLC, page...
  2. (also, attributive) Especially in hummel corn: grain that lacks awns (beards or bristles), or has had its awns removed (barley, oats, etc.).
    • The farmers ſervants who have families, and engage by the year, are called hinds, and receive 10 bolls oats, 2 bolls barley, and 1 boll peas, which two laſt articles are called hummel corn, […]1792, Robert Bowmaker, “Number LI. Parish of Dunse, (County of Berwick.)”, in John Sinclair, editor, The Statistical Account of Scotland. Drawn Up from the Communications of the Ministers of the...
    • Hummel-corn, s[ubstantive] That kind of grain which wants a beard, as pease, beans, &c.[1808, John Jamieson, “Hummel-corn”, in An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language: […], volume I (A–K) (in Scots), Edinburgh: […] University Press; for W[illiam] Creech, A[rchibald]...

Verb

hummel (third-person singular simple present hummels, present participle (US) hummeling or (UK) hummelling, simple past and past participle (US) hummeled or (UK) hummelled)

  1. (transitive) Of an animal: to remove the horns; to poll.
    Synonyms:
    poll
  2. (transitive) To separate (barley, oats, etc.) from the awns.
    • From the minute description of the machinery, I am apt to think it is made at a considerable expense; [...] I am therefore induced to mention the manner of hummelling (or fattering, as it is called in this county) with me. [...] My thrashing mill is of the old construction, being the first erected...1812 August 5, “S.” [pseudonym], “A Cheap Method of Hummelling Barley”, in The Farmer’s Magazine: A Periodical Work Exclusively Devoted to Agriculture and Rural Affairs, volume XIII, number LII...
    • [M]ost threshing-machines are defective in regard to separating the awns of barley from the grains, especially when it has been led home in a raw or soft state. Various devices are often had recourse to for obviating this defect. [...] In other cases, where either of these devices are wanting, it...1814, Robert Kerr, “On the Management of Arable Land in Scotland”, in General Report of the Agricultural State, and Political Circumstances, of Scotland. Drawn Up for the Consideration of the Board...

Noun (2) capitalized: Hummel

Hummel (plural Hummels)

  1. Hummel figurine

Examples of hummel in a sentence

  • First came the wary old hind, looking sharply about her; then a little stag, indifferent to consequences; then more hinds and calves; and last of all the great hummel.1872 February, “An Old Mountaineer” [pseudonym], “Deer-stalking in the Highlands”, in Baily’s Monthly Magazine of Sports and Pastimes...
  • This was convincingly demonstrated in congenitally polled (‘hummel’) red deer, which lack antlers, have pedicles, and can be induced to form a set of antlers if the tips of the pedicles are amputated.2005, Brian K[eith] Hall, “Antlers”, in Bones and Cartilage: Developmental and Evolutionary Skeletal Biology, San Diego, Calif.; London...
  • If threshed by the flail, the awns and sharp points [of oats] will be less broken and hummelled than if threshed by machinery.1867, A. S. Wilson, “The Weight of Corn”, in Journal of the Bath and West of England Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture, Arts...
  • The Japanese hummel their rice in a mortar made of a section of a large tree hollowed out.1875, Edward H. Knight, “Hummeling-machine”, in Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary: Being a Description of Tools, Instruments...

Synonyms of hummel

Forms of hummel

Noun
pluralhummels
alternative formhumble
pluralHummels
Verb
third-person singular presenthummels
present participle UShummeling
present participle UKhummelling
past participle UShummeled
past UShummeled
past participle UKhummelled
past UKhummelled

Plural of hummel: hummels

Origin of hummel

Probably from Middle English hamelen (“to maim, mutilate; to cut short”), from Old English hamelian (“to hamstring, mutilate”), from Proto-Germanic *hamalōną, *hamlōną (“to mutilate”), from Proto-Indo-European *kem- (“hornless; mutilated”). Cognate with Dutch hamel (“wether”), English hamble, Low German hommel, hummel (“an animal lacking horns”), humlich, dialectal hommlich (“lacking horns”), Bavarian humlet (“lacking horns”), German hammeln, hämmeln (“to geld”), Icelandic hamla (“to maim, mutilate”). OxfordDictionaries.com suggests that the “ear of grain with its awns removed” sense preceded the “animal without antlers or horns” sense.

Words formed from hummel

Words that rhyme with hummel

Questions about hummel

What does hummel mean?
Hummel means a stag that has failed to grow antlers; a cow that has not developed horns.
How do you use hummel in a sentence?
First came the wary old hind, looking sharply about her; then a little stag, indifferent to consequences; then more hinds and calves; and last of all the great hummel.
What part of speech is hummel?
Hummel can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce hummel?
Hummel is pronounced /ˈhʌm(ə)l/ (UK).
What is the plural of hummel?
The plural of hummel is hummels.

Words near hummel in the dictionary

  1. hummauls
  2. hummaum
  3. hummaums
  4. hummed
  5. hummed along
  6. hummel
  7. hummeler
  8. hummelers
  9. Hummell
  10. hummelled
  11. hummeller

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hummel (page history and authors); Hummel (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-hummel.wav.

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