# berm
## English
### Etymology

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”).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /bɜː(ɹ)m/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)m

### Noun

berm (plural berms)
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* A narrow ledge or shelf, as along the top or bottom of a slope. (Can we verify this sense?)
* 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.
* (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
* 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.
* 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.
* (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
* A ledge between the parapet and the moat in a fortification.
* (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.
* (Western Pennsylvania) The edge of a road.

#### Derived terms

* Cape Cod berm

#### Translations
### Verb

berm (third-person singular simple present berms, present participle berming, simple past and past participle bermed)
* To provide something with a berm

### Anagrams

* Brem

## Dutch
### Etymology

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

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /bɛrm/
* Audio:(file)
* Hyphenation: berm
* Rhymes: -ɛrm

### Noun

berm m (plural bermen, diminutive bermpje n)
* berm, verge, roadside (strip of land next to a road, street or sidewalk)

#### Derived terms

* bermbeheer
* bermlamp
* bermlicht
* bermooievaarsbek
* bermprostitutie
* bermtoerisme
* bermtoerist
* bermzuring
* binnenberm
* buitenberm
* grasberm
* zandberm
* zeeberm

## Middle English
### Etymology 1

From Old English beorma.

#### Noun

berm
* Alternative form of berme

### Etymology 2

From Old English bearm.

#### Noun

berm
* Alternative form of barm