Etymology
Origin of becalm
Explanation
To becalm is to make something quiet, calm, or still. When there's no wind at all on a lake, you can say that the weather becalms your sailboat. You're most likely to find the verb becalm describing what happens to a sailboat or another vessel with a sail when the air is still and the wind's not blowing. You can also use it to mean "soothe," the way the sound of a familiar voice might becalm a fussy baby. The word dates from about 1550, from be-, "to make," and calm, from the Old French calme, "tranquility."
Vocabulary lists containing becalm
List 4
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By the Great Horn Spoon!
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List 10
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“Every boundary is an illusion, constructed in order to becalm us, in order to give us the impressions of a definite place,” he has written.
From New York Times • Nov. 18, 2022
Even if this is true--can one flying man becalm Iran, North Korea and al-Qaeda?--he sounds as arrogant as a Wall Street CEO.
From Time • May 7, 2010
The fund also administers the Country House and Hospital, which is not equipped to accommodate any behavioral explosion since one of the principal missions here is to becalm.
From Time Magazine Archive
So becalm but to convulse so, Decking heads and breaking hearts?
From Browning's England A Study in English Influences in Browning by Clarke, Helen Archibald
My Lord, I am making a sail according to your lordship's plan, to becalm the hull of the ship, but want sailcloth for completing it.
From The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II by Dundonald, Thomas Barnes Cochrane, Earl of
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
