loom
Noun plurallooms
Plurallooms
- 1To appear in an exaggerated or threatening form, towering over something, dominating the mind, or seeming dangerously imminent.
Like a storm front that fills the sky and makes everything beneath it feel small.
The mountains loom above the tiny coastal village.
A sense of dread loomed over the whole team as the verdict approached.
Similartower, hover, threaten, dominate, overshadow
Note
In news writing the participle does most of the work. Penalties are looming, a shortage is looming, a takeover is looming. As an adjective before a noun (a looming deadline, a looming crisis), it marks an event as near and unwelcome. The threat is the point. Unlike the misty literal verb, nothing is actually seen, and the shadow falls in time rather than in space.
- 2A frame or machine in which a weaver forms cloth from thread, interweaving yarn into fabric as in knitting or lace making.
The weaver threaded the loom carefully before starting the rug.
Modern power looms can produce fabric far faster than hand weaving.
Note
Here the old word for any implement narrowed to one tool in particular, the weaver's frame. It carried that domestic weight into literature. Samuel Johnson, writing in The Rambler in 1751, has Hector send the terrified Andromache "to the loom and the distaff" for consolation, pairing it with the spindle's staff as the settled emblem of work done at home.
- 3To appear indistinctly, as when something is seen on the horizon or through mist.
Out of the mist, the cliffs slowly loom into view.
Something large loomed ahead on the fog-bound road.
Similaremerge, appear, materialize, surface
Oppositevanish, disappear, fade, recede
Note
The verb belongs to a third word with a disputed origin. It may come from Old Norse ljóma, "to shine", or it may be kin to Low German and Frisian words for limping and moving slowly. It is always intransitive. Things loom over, loom up or loom into view; they are never loomed. Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850) shows the participle as an adjective in "a looming bastion fringed with fire".
- 4The blurred, distorted outline of something glimpsed dimly or from far off.
A faint loom of land appeared where the sailors expected the coast.
The loom of the iceberg in the fog tricked the crew about its real size.
Similaroutline, silhouette, shape, shadow
- 5The shaft of an oar, the section running from the handle to the blade.
She wrapped tape around the loom of the oar to protect her hands.
A crack ran along the loom, weakening the whole oar.
Similarshaft
- 6To rise and become eminent; to be morally elevated or ennobled.
Few figures in the town's history loom higher than the doctor who treated the poor for nothing.
His integrity loomed over the lesser ambitions of his rivals.
Note
The admiring counterpart to the threatening figure: what looms here inspires reverence rather than dread. John M. Mason's The Evangelical Ministry Exemplified in the Apostle Paul (1822) has Paul "loom so high, and shine so gloriously". The sense usually needs a height word such as high or large to work, and it reads as elevated, sermon-like prose.
- 7A utensil, tool, or weapon; more generally an article of any kind, usually appearing in compounds.
Each fisherman stowed his loom and tackle before the boat set out.
She inherited a chest of household looms from her grandmother.
Similartool, implement, utensil
Note
The oldest meaning of the word: Old English ġelōma covered any tool or utensil, even a household effect or a piece of furniture. That breadth is why it now lives mostly inside compounds. Heirloom keeps it best, an article handed down, and workloom, a tool for work, is a rarer survivor. The weaving frame and the shaft of an oar are later narrowings of this same general word.
Less common meaning
- 8A fish-eating diving bird of the order Gaviiformes, more commonly called a loon.
Note
A different word from the weaver's loom, though it is spelled the same. It came into English through Shetland dialect, where it named a diver or guillemot, from Old Norse lómr and ultimately from an expressive root meaning "to howl". It is now dated. Use loon for the bird in ordinary writing, and keep loom for quoting or describing older and northern usage.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
From Middle English lome, from Old English *lōma, ġelōma meaning 'tool, utensil, or household item', going back to Proto-West Germanic *lōmō of uncertain origin. It is cognate with Dutch alaam ('tool'), and it perhaps originally meant 'a thing of frequent use', which would link it to Old English ġelōme ('often, repeatedly').
A Shetland dialect word for a diver or guillemot, from Old Norse lómr, ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European expressive root *leh₂- ('to howl').
Origin uncertain. It is perhaps from Old Norse ljóma ('to shine, radiate'), or alternatively perhaps related to words such as Saterland Frisian loomje ('to limp'), Swedish loma ('to go slowly'), and Middle High German lüemen ('to become weak, tire'); compare English lame.