sloom
verbEtymology From Middle English slumen, slummen, from Old English *slūmian (“to slumber, sleep gently”), from Proto-Germanic *slūm- (“to be slack, loose, or limp”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lew- (“limp, flabby”).
1
Scotland To sleep lightly, to doze, to nod; to be half-asleep.
- The squire sloomed and slept in his chair; and finally, after a cup of tea, went to bed.1886, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, The Squire of Sandal-Side A Pastoral Romance:
- To his castle’s portal, / At the morning gloaming, / Bore they all the mortal / From the battle’s foaming, / Of the white bannered warrior knight, / Cold in his armor slooming!a. 1853, Jane Ermina Locke, “Elia”, in The Recalled: In Voices of the Past, and Poems of the Ideal, James Munroe and Company, published 1854, page 193:
3 more examples
- Then the doctor was slooming and nodding, and waking up and saying a word or two, and relapsing again into semi-unconsciousness.1900, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, The Maid of Maiden lane, Dodd, Mead and Company, page 181:
- The afternoon sun painted amber patterns on the Turkey red hearthrug: the only splash of colour in the dun room. Potter sloomed in the arms of the chair.1936, Esmond Quinterley, Ushering Interlude, The Fortune Press, page 66:
- He lay slooming half-asleep, half-awake, thinking about Tuesday afternoon.2001, Gemma O'Connor, Walking on Water, Berkley Publishing Group (2003), page 205
2
To soften or rot with damp. (of plants or soil)
- He adds, that one hundred bolls, or fifty quarters of wheat may be thrashed in a day of eight hours, unless the grain has been sloomed or mildewed; […]a. 1807, unidentified young farmer, letter to his father, printed in Edinburgh Farmers’ Magazine 1807, reprinted in The Farmer’s Register, Volume 7, Number 9 (1839 September 30), page 540
- […] no other spot over their whole pastured offered as much verdure at this time as these seemingly sloomed places.1824 August, “Remarks on Captian Napier's Essay on Store-Farming”, in The Farmer’s Magazine, Volume XXV, Archibald Constable and Company (publishers), page 329
1 more example
- It must be explained, however, that in the latter case the “slooming” of the crop had an injurious effect on its yield; […]c. 1854, Alexander J. Main, “Experiments with Special Manures”, in Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, W. Blackwood & Sons (1855), page 17