hamelen

Alternative forms

• homelen, heomelen, hamlen

Etymology

From Old English hamelian, possibly from Old Norse (compare Icelandic hamla (“to maim, mutilate”)),^[1] from Proto-Germanic *hamalōną, *hamlōną (“to mutilate”), from Proto-Indo-European *kem- (“hornless; mutilated”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɑ.me.len/, /ˈhɑ.mə.lən/

Verb

hamelen (third-person singular simple present hameleth, present participle hamelende, simple past hamelede, hamlede, past participle hameled, ihamled)

1. To maim, to mutilate.
   • c. 1380s, [Geoffrey Chaucer; William Caxton, editor], The Double Sorow of Troylus to Telle Kyng Pryamus Sone of Troye [...] [Troilus and Criseyde], [Westminster]: Explicit per Caxton, published 1482, OCLC 863541017; republished as William Thynne, editor, The Woorkes of Geffrey Chaucer, Newly Printed, with Diuers Addicions, which were Neuer in Printe before: With the Siege and Destruccion of the Worthy Citee of Thebes, Compiled by Ihon Lidgate, Monke of Berie. As in the Table More Plainly Dooeth Appere, book II, London: Imprinted at London, by Ihon Kyngston, for Ihon Wight, dwellying in Poules Churchyarde, 1561, OCLC 932919585, folio CLXII, recto, lines 960–964, column 2:

     For thus ferforth I haue thy werke begon / Fro daie to daie, til this daie by the morowe / Her loue of frendſhip haue I to thee won / And therfore hath ſhe laid her faith to borow / Algate a foote is hameled of thy sorowe

2. To cut short, to truncate.

References