| 释义 |
▪ I. coomb1, comb dial.|kuːm|
Forms: see the separate senses.
[c gray][The senses here included appear to belong to the same original word, though this, from want of early evidence, is not quite proved. Sense 1 is found only in OE. as cumb; sense 2 is found from 14th to 17th c., in form comb, combe; its pronunciation is unfortunately unknown; sense 3 begins a 1500, and has the forms comb, combe, coomb, pronounced (kuːm[/c]). OE. cumb was prob. identical with older LG. kumb, HG. kump; cf. mod.LG. and HG. kumm a vessel, in various dialects, a round deep vessel, basin, cistern, trough, etc. (also mod.G. kumme, older prob. kumbe). Besides this mod.G. has kumpf, LG. kump, a vessel (in many senses), a measure of corn and fruit, 1/16 of a malter, i.e. an English peck nearly. The Bremen Wörterbuch identifies the two LG. forms: ‘kumm oder besser kump, tiefe schüssel’: so that we have app. an OTeut. type *kumbo-, *kummo-, with by-form *kumpo- (as in clam, clamp), with general sense of vessel, or hollowed-out receptacle.
As to the phonetic history, the vowel of OE. cumb was app. lengthened before mb as in comb, climb, clomb, with similar loss of b, and the ū sound preserved in modern Eng. instead of being diphthongized, as in OE. rúm, ME. roum, mod. room. Cf. also coop.]
†1. (OE. cumb). A vessel, a cup; or perhaps a small measure. Obs.
791–6in Birch Cartul. Sax. I. 380 (No. 273) Cumb fulne liðes aloþ, and cumb fulne Welisces aloþ. c1000Sax. Leechd. III. 28 Gebreow mid gryt cumb fulne ealað mid ðy wætere.
2. (5–7 combe, 6–7 comb.) A brewing tub or vat. Obs.
a1400Chester Pl. (Shaks. Soc.) II. 82 For castinge maulte besyddes the combe. 1559Lanc. Wills I. 151 The greatest mashe fatt..and the great yealynge combe. 1615Markham Eng. Housew. (1660) 157 To let it be too long in the Comb..will make it both corrupt, and breed Weevels..the greatest destroyers of malt. 1635Brereton Trav. (1884) 104, I took notice of that common brew-house..the greatest, vastest leads, boiling keeves, cisterns and combs, that ever I saw. 1688R. Holme Armoury iii. 319/2 A Comb, or a Brewers Working Comb, or ..Yelling Comb or Tub is that Vessel into which the Wort is put to Work with the Yeast. [1847–78Halliwell, Comb, a brewing-vat. Chesh.]
3. (5–6 combe, 5–9 comb, 6 come, coeme, koome, 6–7 coome, 7 coumb, 6– coomb.) A dry measure of capacity, equal to four bushels, or half a quarter.
1418Bury Wills (Camden) 5, j comb brasij. 1465Mann. & Househ. Exp. 179 Ffor a combe whete, iij.s. iiij.d. 1560Proude Wyves Pater Noster 75 in Hazl E.P.P. IV. 155 Of dyuers cornes I haue many a come At home in my barne for to sell. 1573Tusser Husb. (1878) 36 Ten sacks whereof euerie one holdeth a coome [margin, A Coeme is halfe a quarter]. a1670Hacket Abp. Williams i. (1692) 63 To whom his Majesty measured out his accumulated gifts, not by the bushel, or by the coome, but by the barn-full. 1674Ray S. & E.C. Words 62 A Coomb or Coumb of Corn: Half a Quarter. 1723Lond. Gaz. No. 6224/5 Loaded with 11 Last 18 Combs of Malt. 1762tr. Busching's Syst. Geog. V. 498 They also cultivate yearly..44,000 coombs of potatoes. 1802H. C. Robinson Diary (1869) I. v. 106 Wheat has fallen..from 92s. to 30s. the coomb. 1883Times 9 Mar., Out of 65 towns selling by measure, only 35 used the Imperial quarter, the others selling by coombs, sacks, loads, etc.
4. (cum, cumb, coom, kim.) A tub, cistern, as ‘milk-cum or kim’; also a large ladle for baling out a boat; West and South of Sc. (Suppl. to Jamieson, 1887.)
5. Comb., as coomb-sack, a sack containing a coomb.
1573–80G. Harvey Letter-bk. (Camden) 93 Browght..to your mill in a koome or quarter sack. c1600Day Begg. Bednell Gr. v. (1881) 111 They are all our own, and there were a combseck full on 'em. 1891F. Hall (personal communication), Coomb-sack I know well here in Suffolk.
▪ II. coomb2, combe, comb|kuːm|
Forms: 1 cumb, (? 3 comb), 6 coome, 6– coombe, combe, 7– comb, 8– coomb, (9 coom).
[In OE., cumb masc. ‘small valley, hollow’ occurs in the charters, in the descriptions of local boundaries in the south of England; also in numerous place-names which still exist, as Batancumb Batcombe, Brancescumb Branscombe, Eastcumb Eastcomb, Sealtcumb Salcombe, Wincelcumb Winchcombe, etc. As a separate word it is not known in ME. literature, but has survived in local use, in which it is quite common in the south of England: see sense b. In literature coomb appears in the second half of the 16th c., probably introduced from local use; a century later, it was still treated by Ray as a local southern word. OE. cumb is usually supposed to be of British origin: modern Welsh has cwm (kum) in the same sense, also in composition in place-names as -cwm, -gwm, and in syntactic combination as Cwm Bochlwyd. A large number of place- names beginning with Cum-, especially frequent in Cumbria, Dumfriesshire, and Strathclyde, as Cumwhitton, Cumdivock, Cumlongan, Cumloden, appear to be thus formed. Welsh cwm represents an earlier cumb, OCeltic *kumbos. The OE. word might however be an obvious application of cumb, coomb1, to a physical feature, though there is no trace of any such application of the cognate German words on the Continent; in any case, if the Saxons and Angles found a British cumb applied to a hollow in the ground, its coincidence with their own word for ‘basin, bowl, deep vessel’ would evidently favour its acceptance and common use. This might further be strengthened, after the Norman Conquest, by the existence of a F. combe ‘petite vallée, pli de terrain, lieu bas entouré de collines’ (Littré, 12th c.), cognate with Pr., Sp. and north It. comba, for which also a Celtic origin has been claimed. See Diez, Thurneysen, Littré. The phonetic history is the same as in coomb1; in composition (in names of old formation) (-kuːm) has sunk to |-kəm|.]
1. a. A deep hollow or valley: in OE. charters; not known in ME. but occurring from the 16th c. in the general sense of valley, and more especially of a deep narrow valley, clough, or cleugh.
770in Birch Cartul. Sax. I. 290 (No. 204) Of þære brigge in cumb; of þam cumbe in ale beardes ac. 847Ibid. II. 34 (No. 451) Fram smalan cumbes heafde to græwan stane. 1578Lyte Dodoens ii. xxiv. 175 Foxeglove..groweth..in darke shadowie valleys or coombes where there has been myning for iron and smithes cole. Ibid. iii. xii. 332 Gentian groweth..in certayne coomes or valleys. 1586J. Hooker Girald. Irel. in Holinshed II. 169/2 A vallie or a combe..of a great length, betweene two hils. 1613W. Browne Brit. Past. ii. iii, The walkes and arbours in these fruitfull coombes. 1799Southey Lett. (1856) I. 79 Imagine a vale, almost narrow enough to be called a coombe, running between two ranges of hills. 1872Tennyson Gareth & Lynette 1162 Anon they past a narrow comb wherein Were slabs of rock with figures.
b. spec. In the south of England, a hollow or valley on the flank of a hill; esp. one of the characteristic hollows or small valleys closed in at the head, on the sides of and under the chalk downs; also, a steep short valley running up from the sea coast.
1674Ray S. & E.C. Words, Combe: Devon. Corn... Vallis utrinque collibus obsita, Skinner. 1807Vancouver Agric. Devon (1813) 21 The banks of the rivers Taw and Mole, as well as the combes or hollows branching in..from them. 1855M. Arnold Poems, Youth of Nature, Far to the South the heath Still blows in the Quantock coombs. 1862Ansted Channel Isl. i. v. (ed. 2) 103 There is here a pretty coomb, or semicircular depression of the surface. 1879Dowden Southey iii. 64 Roaming among the vales and woods, the coombes and cliffs of Devon. 1886Besant Childr. Gibeon ii. xii, Where the sea mists sweep up the narrow coombe.
c. In the south of Scotland and in the English Lake district, ‘[in] such hills as are scooped out on one side in form of a crescent, the bosom of the hill, or that portion which lies within the lunated verge, is always denominated the coomb’. (Hogg Queen's Wake 1813 Notes xxiv.)
That the word is native in Scotland is doubtful: Jamieson's Dictionary knows nothing of it beyond Hogg's assertion, and it is not in common use. But in Cumbria it appears in some local names, as Gillercombe, the great hollow above Sour Milk Gill in Borrowdale, and as a separate word in Glaramara Combe, Langdale Combe.
1813Hogg Queen's Wake 223 The dark cock bayed above the coomb Throned mid the wavy fringe of gold. 1872Jenkinson Guide Eng. Lakes (1879) 219 A small stream which flows from the Comb—the large opening scooped out of Glaramara.
2. coombe rock Geol., a deposit of flints in chalk, found esp. in the coombes of Sussex; = head n. 11 c.
1822G. A. Mantell Fossils of S. Downs xix. 277 Calcareous bed, formed of the ruin of the chalk strata, with an inter-mixture of clay; it is provincially termed Coombe rock. 1876H. B. Woodward Geol. Eng. & Wales x. 321 The Elephant Bed, provincially termed Coombe rock, is chiefly made up of chalk rubble. 1903A. Geikie Textbk. Geol. (ed. 4) II. vi. v. 1329 Various deposits..indicate that..this southern fringe of England had its own glacial conditions. Among these is the ‘Coombe-rock’ of Sussex—a mass of unstratified rubbish. 1936Proc. Prehist. Soc. II. 53 These solifluxion products are most frequently preserved in steep-sided lateral valleys, and, particularly when formed partly or wholly of chalk fragments, go by the general name of ‘coombe rock’.
▪ III. coomb
obs. f. comb; var. come n.2 |