walm

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In Old English and Middle English, walm had various senses relating to water. It could mean “upwelling of water,” “bubbling of water during boiling,” or “surging of waves.” Walm was also a verb for “spout forth.” The word comes from a Germanic root dealing with heat. This walm, however, has become obsolete and appears only in obscure, archaic contexts.

In Modern English, walm frequently occurs as a typo for warm, perhaps because people associate warm with calm while writing the word or because they are influenced by their pronunciation of warm, which sounds more like wom in British English.

Walm is sometimes used an a shortened form of Walmart, the international superstore chain. Some users mis-type the name of the retailer as Walm-mart or as a humorous Walm-art.

In occasional uses, walm is a blend word of warm and calm and an abbreviation of weight and lifestyle management. The 2005 novel Punk Land, by Carlton Mellick coined its own walm for “an evil doorway created by God.” There’s one Urban Dictionary entry for walm from 2008 … it has 3 votes: “Walm – noun – mammal, known to walk the land, use computers, and write in nothing but mathematical notation.”