combe
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English coumbe, cumbe, from Old English cumb, from Proto-Brythonic (compare Welsh cwm), from Proto-Celtic *kumbā. Doublet of cwm.
Pronunciation edit
- (UK) enPR: ko͞om, IPA(key): /kuːm/
Audio (Southern England) (file) Audio (UK) (file) - Homophones: coom, cwm
- Rhymes: -uːm
Noun edit
combe (plural combes)
- A valley, often wooded and often with no river
- 1914, Saki, ‘The Cobweb’, Beasts and Superbeasts:
- its long, latticed window [...] looked out on a wild spreading view of hill and heather and wooded combe.
- 1805, Robert Southey, “(please specify the page)”, in Madoc, London: […] [F]or Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and A[rchibald] Constable and Co, […], by James Ballantyne, […], →OCLC:
- gradual rise the shelving combe displayed.
- 1950 April, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, pages 264-265:
- You wake up next morning on what looks like Salisbury Plain, only here you climb up the side of every combe, round the end and out the other side.
- A cirque.
Usage notes edit
Used, especially in South West England, in many placenames, e.g. Compton, Wycombe.
Translations edit
deep, narrow valley
Further reading edit
French edit
Etymology edit
From Transalpine Gaulish *cumba, from Proto-Celtic *kumbā. Compare Breton komm (“river-bed”), Irish com, Welsh cwm.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
combe f (plural combes)
Further reading edit
- “combe”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Galician edit
Verb edit
combe
- inflection of combar:
Italian edit
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
combe f
Middle English edit
Noun edit
combe
- Alternative form of comb
Spanish edit
Verb edit
combe
- inflection of combar: