Forms: 6 quamme (? calme), 6–7 qualme, quaume, qua(i)me, 7 quawme, quaem, 6– qualm. [Of obscure origin: in form and sense identical with Da. kvalme, † kvalm, Sw. qvalm, but these are app. not native words. Cf. G. (now dial.) qualm (kalm) swoon, faint, unconscious state (:—MHG. twalm: see DWALM sb.), and G. qualm (whence Da. kvalm, Sw. qvalm) vapor, steam, close air.
OE. cwealm QUALM sb.1 had the sense ‘pain,’ ‘torment,’ (see quots. in Bosw.-Toller), and some instances of qualm in 16–17th c. use might conceivably mean ‘pain,’ ‘pang’; but historical evidence of connection is wanting, and the sense of ‘sick fit,’ ‘sickness’ is possible in all the cases.]
1. A (sudden) feeling or fit of faintness, illness or sickness. (Now restricted to cases in which the seat of the disorder is in the stomach, but formerly in somewhat wider use.)
c. 1530. R. Copland, Jyl of Brentfords Test., 233. With qualmes & stytches it doth me torment, That all my body is torne and rent.
1565. Jewel, Repl. Harding (1611), 52. If any quame or sicknesse happen to fall vpon him.
1594. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. 139. Such as haue some quaume about their heart, so that they faint and sowne.
1683. Tryon, Way to Health, 27. It makes the Stomach sick … and sickish Qualms to arise.
1740. Somerville, Hobbinol, III. 219. The sickly Qualms That grieve her Soul.
1829. Lytton, Devereux, II. v. Has the bottle bequeathed thee a qualm or a head-ache.
1874. Burnand, My Time, xxxii. 326. Breeze enough for sailing,… no qualms to interfere with appetite.
2. transf. a. A fit of sickening fear, misgiving or depression; a sudden sinking or faintness of heart. Now rare.
a. 1555. Ridley, in Foxe, A. & M., III. (1596), 446. The weake manne of God … will have now and then such thoughtes and quaumes (as they call them) to runne ouer his hart.
1624. Ld. Keeper Williams, in Fortesc. Papers (Camden), 203. A certayne qualme came over his stomacke to be of a Judge noe Judge.
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull, III. iii. Many a doubt, many a qualm, overspread his clouded imagination.
1792. Mary Wollstonecr., Rights Wom., v. 236. [I] soon heard, with the sickly qualm of disappointed hope … that she was no more.
1861. Sat. Rev., 21 Dec., 636. Apt to leave qualms and misgivings on the sensitive … temperament.
b. A strong scruple of conscience; a painful doubt or consciousness of acting wrongly.
1649. Milton, Eikon., xxviii. 240. Unedified consciences apt to engage their Leaders in great affaires and then, upon a sudden qualm and swimming of their conscience, betray them.
1687. T. Brown, Saints in Uproar, Wks. 1730, I. 77. So strangely troubled with qualms of conscience.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, VI. xiii. It was absurd … to affect any qualms about this trifle.
1806. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1830), IV. 55. One qualm of principle I acknowledge I do feel.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea (1877), II. xiv. 241. It was natural that some of the members of the Government should have qualms.
c. A fit or sudden access of some quality, principle, etc. (Now only with suggestion of prec.)
a. 1626. Bp. Andrewes, Serm., Repent. & Fasting (1661), 170. I doubt ours hath been rather a flash, a qualme, a brunt than otherwise.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., III. v. § 55. Although this qualm of Loyalty took this Church for the present.
1655. Jer. Taylor, Guide Devot. (1719), 125. If the Fit or Qualm of my Devotion holds out longer.
1820. W. Irving, Sketch Bk., II. 282. Immediately after one of these fits of extravagance, he will be taken with violent qualms of economy.
1873. Browning, Red Cott. Nt.-cap, 269. Had he a devotion-fit? Clara grew serious with like qualm.
3. Comb., as qualm-sick adj.
1718. Entertainer, No. 30. 202. [They] grew qualm-sick at the Common Prayer.
1758. Mickmakis & Maricheets, 55. She … blows the smoak towards his nostrils, even sometimes so violently, as to make him qualm-sick.
1880. Burton, Queen Anne, II. xi. 189. Qualm-sick stomachs of … self-conceited hypocrites.
