clem

• Rhymes: -ɛm

Cf. clam (“to clog”), or German klemmen (“to jam, clamp; to be stuck, adhere (to a surface)”), Icelandic klmbra, English clamp.

clem (third-person singular simple present clems, present participle clemming, simple past and past participle clemmed)

1. (transitive or intransitive) To be hungry; starve.
   • 1889, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, Between Two Loves, Ch. VI, p. 110:

     " […] Here he's back home again, and without work, and without a penny, and thou knows t' little one and I were pretty well clemmed to death when thou got us a bit o' bread and meat last night. We were that!"

2. To stick, adhere.

• The Dictionary of the Scots Language

Possibly from clementine, a small round citrus fruit.

clem (plural clems)

1. (Geordie, vulgar, slang) A testicle.

• clem in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• ECML