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palm

noun · verb

Simple meaning

The inner surface of the hand from the wrist to the base of the fingers.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

pahm
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈpɑm

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The inner surface of the hand from the wrist to the base of the fingers

  2. A linear unit based on the length or width of the human hand

  3. The broad flattened part of an antler, as of a full-grown fallow deer; so called as resembling the palm of the hand with its protruding fingers.

  4. A branch or leaf of the palm, anciently borne or worn as a symbol of victory or rejoicing.

  5. figurativeby extension

    Triumph; victory.

  6. The corresponding part of the forefoot of a nonprimate mammal.

verb

  1. To hold or conceal something in the palm of the hand, e.g., for an act of sleight of hand or to steal something.

  2. intransitivetransitive

    To use one's palm as identification to get through a door or security checkpoint.

  3. To hold something without bending the fingers significantly.

  4. To move something with the palm of the hand.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The inner surface of the hand from the wrist to the base of the fingers

Used this way, palm is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

palm beachpalm oilpalm treedate palmpalm winecoconut palmwest palmopen palm

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • palmernounInflected form

    United States golfer (born in 1929).

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • palm nutnounCompound term

    Seed of any oil palm.

  • palm offverbCompound term

    Sell as genuine, sell with the intention to deceive.

  • palm oilnounCompound term

    Oil from nuts of oil palms especially the African oil palm.

  • palm readingnounCompound term

    Telling fortunes by lines on the palm of the hand.

  • palm sundaynounCompound term

    Sunday before Easter.

  • palm treenounCompound term

    Any plant of the family Palmae having an unbranched trunk crowned by large pinnate or palmate leaves.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

  • palmettonounRelated term

    Any of several low-growing palms with fan-shaped leaves.

  • palmyranounRelated term

    Tall fan palm of Africa and India and Malaysia yielding a hard wood and sweet sap that is a source of palm wine and sugar.

  • cabbage palmettonounRelated term

    Low-growing fan-leaved palm of coastal southern United States having edible leaf buds.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

noun

Sense: inner surface of the hand from the wrist to the base of the fingers

laurel wreath

verb

Sense: to hold

handle

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.