sloom

Etymology 1
From, , , from , from , from. Compare and 🇨🇬.

Noun

 * 1) A gentle sleep; slumber.

Derived terms

 * sloomy

Etymology 2
From, , from , from , from.

Verb

 * 1)  To sleep lightly, to doze, to nod; to be half-asleep.
 * 2) * 1936, Esmond Quinterley, Ushering Interlude, The Fortune Press, page 66:
 * The afternoon sun painted amber patterns on the Turkey red hearthrug: the only splash of colour in the dun room. Potter sloomed in the arms of the chair.
 * 1) * 2001, Gemma O'Connor, Walking on Water, Berkley Publishing Group (2003), ISBN 978-0-515-13597-8, page 205:
 * He lay slooming half-asleep, half-awake, thinking about Tuesday afternoon.
 * 1) To soften or rot with damp.
 * , unidentified young farmer, letter to his father, printed in Edinburgh Farmers’ Magazine 1807, reprinted in The Farmer’s Register, Volume 7, Number 9 (1839 September 30), page 540:
 * He adds, that one hundred bolls, or fifty quarters of wheat may be thrashed in a day of eight hours, unless the grain has been sloomed or mildewed;
 * 1) * 1824 August, “Remarks on Captian Napier's Essay on Store-Farming”, in The Farmer’s Magazine, Volume XXV, Archibald Constable and Company (publishers), page 329:
 * no other spot over their whole pastured offered as much verdure at this time as these seemingly sloomed places.
 * 1) * c. 1854, Alexander J. Main, “Experiments with Special Manures”, in Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, W. Blackwood & Sons (1855), page 17:
 * It must be explained, however, that in the latter case the “slooming” of the crop had an injurious effect on its yield;
 * no other spot over their whole pastured offered as much verdure at this time as these seemingly sloomed places.
 * 1) * c. 1854, Alexander J. Main, “Experiments with Special Manures”, in Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, W. Blackwood & Sons (1855), page 17:
 * It must be explained, however, that in the latter case the “slooming” of the crop had an injurious effect on its yield;

Etymology
Uncertain; first attested in the late nineteenth century. Ostensibly a variant of, perhaps influenced by words pertaining to slowness and sluggishness with initial sl- such as , , and.

Note however the fixed expression, which contains some of the earliest attestations of this word and derives from the pseudonym Sjloume Duikelaar, a late eighteenth-century author from Amsterdam writing in Yiddish. It is uncertain if the adaptation of the name to slome is influenced by the prior existence of this word, or if this word in fact derives from the pseudonym.

Adjective

 * 1) sluggish, slow, lifeless