combe
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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]
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:
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms derived from Proto-Brythonic
- English terms derived from Proto-Celtic
- English doublets
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English terms with homophones
- Rhymes:English/uːm
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- en:Landforms
- French terms derived from Transalpine Gaulish
- French terms derived from Proto-Celtic
- French 1-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French feminine nouns
- fr:Geography
- Galician non-lemma forms
- Galician verb forms
- Italian 2-syllable words
- Italian terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:Italian/ombe
- Rhymes:Italian/ombe/2 syllables
- Italian non-lemma forms
- Italian noun forms
- Middle English lemmas
- Middle English nouns
- Spanish non-lemma forms
- Spanish verb forms