# Use of the contrived verb "whelm" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 30, 2013, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/use-of-the-contrived-verb-whelm/672693 "2013-10-30T22:13:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/use-of-the-contrived-verb-whelm/672693/1 "2013-10-30T22:13:18Z")
In a magazine article on the care of kittens, it said not to show a new kitten too much of your home at first ‘so it won’t be overwhelmed.’ I wanted to picture a cute little kitten with a sign around its neck reading “WHELMED.” 🙂 To what uses can this contrived verb be put? ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/use-of-the-contrived-verb-whelm/672693/2 "2013-10-30T22:17:48Z")
You don’t want it to [whelmed](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whelm) either > [@](#): > > Definition of WHELM > transitive verb > 1 > : to turn (as a dish or vessel) upside down usually to cover something : cover or engulf completely with usually disastrous effect > 2 > : to overcome in thought or feeling : overwhelm \ ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/use-of-the-contrived-verb-whelm/672693/3 "2013-10-30T23:06:11Z")
I’ve heard of underwhelmed being used to mean not impressed at all. Etymology sites will give as an example of overwhelmed: a bowl being placed over a plate of food to keep flies and other vermin away, and a bowl being clapped down over a mouse, which is then in great danger. But the first sense of the word has been overwhelmed by the second. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/use-of-the-contrived-verb-whelm/672693/4 "2013-10-30T23:20:15Z")
As always when it comes to the etymology of obscure words I turn to World Wide Words. > [@](#): > > The verb whelm does exist, though you might search for some time before you find examples in modern prose. That’s excluding fantasy and historical fiction, of course — when S M Stirling wrote in On the Oceans of Eternity, “Whelm not our ships with Your anger, but give us swift voyaging and good winds, full nets and victory”, his choice of whelm was deliberately archaic, to help convey to his readers the sense of being in another time and place. On the other hand, to come across “It was a late-arriving crowd that saw the Hurricanes whelm the Philadelphia Flyers Saturday night”, which appeared in The News & Record of North Carolina back in 1998, is to be brought up short, wondering if the word’s a misprint. > > But it was once common. It started as a medieval English sea term meaning to capsize — it’s related to the even older whelve, to overturn. Around 1513, Robert Fabyan used it in The Newe Cronycles of Englande and of Fraunce: “By the mysgydynge of the sterysman, he was set vpon the pylys of the brydge, and the barge whelmyd” (in modern spelling “By the misguidance of the steersman, he was set upon the piles of the bridge, and the barge whelmed”). > **[Whelmed](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-whe1.htm)** > > You can be Overwhelmed and Underwhelmed, but can you just be Whelmed? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2013, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/use-of-the-contrived-verb-whelm/672693/5 "2013-10-31T01:42:50Z")
Science Fiction writer Jack Vance even used it as a noun, in one of his “Alastor Cluster” novels. The space emperor’s (“The Connatic’s”) battle fleet was called “The Whelm.”