qualm

Meaning

Noun

1. A feeling of apprehension, doubt, fear etc.
2. A sudden sickly feeling; queasiness.
3. A prick of the conscience; a moral scruple, a pang of guilt.
4. Mortality; plague; pestilence.
5. A calamity or disaster.

Verb

To have a sickly feeling.

Synonyms

scruple

misgiving

queasiness

doubt

compunction

nausea

hesitation

demur

squeamishness

mistrust

indecision

seasickness

distrust

reluctance

sickliness

skepticism

suspicion

uncertainty

uneasiness

travel sickness

anxiety

dubiosity

apprehension

diffidence

disbelief

disinclination

dubiety

hesitance

hesitancy

illness

mental reservation

nauseousness

penitence

peradventure

Pronounced as (IPA)

/kwɑːm/

Etymology

Perhaps from Middle English qualm, cwalm (“death, sickness, plague”), which is from Old English cwealm (West Saxon: "death, disaster, plague"), ūtcwalm (Anglian: "utter destruction"), from Proto-West Germanic *kwalm (“killing, death, destruction”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH- (“to stick, pierce; pain, injury, death”), whence also quell. Although the sense development is possible, this has the problem that there are no attestations in intermediate senses before the appearance of "pang of apprehension, etc." in the 16th century. The alternative etymology is from Dutch kwalm or German Qualm (“steam, vapor, mist”) earlier “daze, stupefaction”, which is from the root of German quellen (“to stream, well up”). The sense “feeling of faintness” is from 1530; “uneasiness, doubt” from 1553; “scruple of conscience” from 1649.