From Middle English whelmen, perhaps from Old English *hwealmnian, a variant of *hwealfnian, from hwealf, from Proto-West Germanic *hwalb, from Proto-Germanic *hwalbą, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷelp-.

The noun is derived from the verb.

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: whĕlm, wĕlm, IPA: /ʍɛlm/, /wɛlm/

whelm (whelms, present participle whelming; simple past and past participle whelmed)

1. (transitive, archaic) To bury, to cover; to engulf, to submerge.

   Synonyms: overwhelm, whemmel

   Antonyms: unwhelm

   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, scene ii], page 46 ↗, column 1:

     Giue fire: ſhe is my prize, or Ocean whelme them all.

   • [1716], [John] Gay, “Book II. Of Walking the Streets by Day.”, in Trivia: Or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London, London: […] Bernard Lintott, […], →OCLC ↗, page 46 ↗:

     Still let me walk; for oft' the ſudden Gale / Ruffles the Tide, and ſhifts the dang'rous Sail, / Then ſhall the Paſſenger, too late, deplore / The whelming Billow, and the faithleſs Oar; [...]

   • 1786, Robert Burns, “To a Mountain-daisy, On Turning One Down, with the Plough, in April—1786”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, volume I, Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] John Wilson, →OCLC ↗; reprinted Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] James M‘Kie, 1867, →OCLC ↗, page 172 ↗:

     Such is the fate of ſimple Bard, / On Life's rough ocean luckleſs ſtarr'd! / Unſkilful he to note the card / Of prudent Lore, / Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, / And whelm him o'er!

   • 1803, Erasmus Darwin, “Canto I. Production of Life.”, in The Temple of Nature; or, The Origin of Society: A Poem, with Philosophical Notes, London: Printed for J[oseph] Johnson, […], by T[homas] Bensley, […], →OCLC ↗, section II, page 11 ↗, lines 113–116:

     Deep-whelm'd beneath, in vast sepulchral caves, / Oblivion dwells amid unlabell'd graves; / The storied tomb, the laurell'd bust o'erturns, / And shakes their ashes from the mould'ring urns.

   • 1851 November 13, Herman Melville, chapter 37, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC ↗, page 185 ↗:

     The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass.

2. (transitive, obsolete) To throw (something) over a thing so as to cover it.

   Synonyms: whemmel

3. (transitive, obsolete) To ruin or destroy.
   • 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC ↗, page 68 ↗:

     In the twentieth night of the nine hundredth moon, as night came up the valley, I performed the mystic rites of each of the gods in the temple as is my wont, lest any of the gods should grow angry in the night and whelm us while we slept.

4. (intransitive, archaic) To overcome with emotion; to overwhelm.

• French: submerger
• Italian: ingolfare, impantanarsi, immergersi, infognarsi, sopraffare, seppellire

• French: submerger
• Italian: essere sopraffatto

whelm (plural whelms)

1. (poetic, also, figuratively) A surge of water.

   the whelm of the tide

2. A wooden drainpipe, a hollowed out tree trunk, turned with the cavity downwards to form an arched watercourse.