culm

• IPA^(key): /kʌlm/

Perhaps related to coal. Perhaps from Welsh cwlm (“knot or tie”), applied to this species of coal, which is much found in balls or knots in some parts of Wales: compare Old English culme.

culm (countable and uncountable, plural culms)

1. waste coal, used as a poor quality fuel; slack.
   • 1887, Homer Greene, chapter XXI, in Burnham Breaker:

     Here he lay down on a place soft with culm, to take his contemplated rest, and, before he was aware of it, sleep had descended on him, overpowered him, and bound him fast.

2. anthracite, especially when found in small masses

Borrowed from Latin culmus.

culm (plural culms)

1. (botany) the stem of a plant, especially of grass or sedge
   • 1962, Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire, page 150:

     ...because, upon hearing him out, she sank down on the lawn in an impossible posture, examining a grass culm and frowning, he had taken his words back at once;...

• Clum, MCLU, clum