berm

From Dutch berm (“strip of roadside grass, verge”), probably via French berme, from Middle Dutch barm, baerm, barem (“verge, bank”), from Old Dutch *barm, from Proto-West Germanic *barm, from Proto-Germanic *barmaz (“edge, border, seam”). Related to English brim.

• IPA^(key): /bɜː(ɹ)m/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)m

berm (plural berms)

1. A narrow ledge or shelf, as along the top or bottom of a slope. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?)
2. A raised bank or path, especially the bank of a canal opposite the towpath.

   Synonym: (canal path) heelpath

   • 1910 February 23, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture, Protection of Watersheds of Navigable Streams, page 139:

     The big canals in Europe, in Holland, have a great big berm on the side of the canal several feet wide, which they leave there on purpose to plant reeds in, so as to get a reedy vegetation to protect their slope. Then, beyond that, there is an earthen slope that is grassed and sodded.

3. (mining, Australia) One of the flat terraces on the slope of an open-pit mine.

   Synonyms: (US) bench, (US) bench floor

   Coordinate terms: (Australia) batter, (US) bench face

4. A terrace or shelf of sand along a beach, formed above the high tide water level by wave action.

   On some beaches, the berm grows higher in summer and flattens out in the rougher winter seas.

5. A long mound or bank of earth, used especially as a barrier or to provide insulation.

   A berm separates the Moroccan-controlled and Polisario-controlled parts of Western Sahara.

6. (mining, US, Canada) A small wall along the edge of a bench of an open-pit mine, intended to prevent items falling over the crest.

   Synonym: (Australia) windrow

7. A ledge between the parapet and the moat in a fortification.
8. (Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Zealand) A strip of land between a street and sidewalk.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:verge

   • 2003, Emma Espiner, There’s a Cure for This: A Memoir, Penguin, page 15:

     The sun soaked our street in hot yellow, and the berms were gasping for water.

9. (Western Pennsylvania) The edge of a road.

• Cape Cod berm

berm (third-person singular simple present berms, present participle berming, simple past and past participle bermed)

1. To provide something with a berm

• Brem

From Middle Dutch baerm, from Old Dutch *barm, from Proto-Germanic *barmaz.

• IPA^(key): /bɛrm/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: berm
• Rhymes: -ɛrm

berm m (plural bermen, diminutive bermpje n)

1. berm, verge, tree lawn, roadside (strip of land next to a road, street or sidewalk)

From Old English beorma.

berm

1. Alternative form of berme

From Old English bearm.

berm

1. Alternative form of barm