Barm

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /bɑː(ɹ)m/

From Old English bearm.

Full definition of barm

Noun

1. obsolete except in dialects Bosom, lap.
• Late 14th century: And with that word this faucon gan to crie
  And swowned eft in Canacees barm. — Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Squire's Tale’, Canterbury Tales

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /bɑː(ɹ)m/

From Old English beorma; related to the dialectal (Low) German Bärm ("yeast"), from Middle Low German barm, berm. The cake sense is possibly a shortened form of barmcake, which would be made with yeast as described in that sense, or possibly it is from the Irish báirín breac, a type of cake.

Noun

1. Foam rising upon beer, or other malt liquors, when fermenting, and used as leaven in making bread and in brewing; yeast.
• 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 4, p. 620:In 1577 yeast, called barm, is bought at 9d. the pail.
• 1913, DH Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, Penguin 2006, p. 65:And he chaffed the women as he served them their ha'porths of barm.
2. A small, flat, round individual loaf or roll of bread.