brim

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to fill as much as possible

   Brim a cup to good fellowship.

2. 2
   verb

   to be completely full

   My eyes brimmed with tears.

3. 3
   noun

   Originally, a border or edge of a sea, a river, or other body of water; now, any border or edge.

   Yet ſtill that direful ſtroke kept on his vvay, / And falling heauie on Cambellos creſt, / Strooke him ſo hugely, that in ſvvovvne he lay, / And in his head an hideous vvound impreſt: / And ſure had it not happily found reſt / Vpon the brim of his brode plated ſhield, / It vvould haue cleft his braine dovvne to his breſt.

4. 4
   verb

   To fill (a container) to the brim (noun etymology 1, noun sense 1.1), top, or upper edge.

   Arrange the board and brim the glass.

5. 5
   verb

   To be full until almost overflowing.

   The room brimmed with people.

6. 6
   noun

   Synonym of bream (“a freshwater fish from one of a number of genera”); specifically (US), the redbreast sunfish (Lepomis auritus).

   Sometimes her daddy would take her fishing for catfish or brim (bream) out on the lake in his john boat.

7. 7
   verb

   Of a boar (“male pig”): to mate with (a sow (“female pig”)); to rut.

   Svvine alone of all creatures vvhen they be brimming, froth and fome at the mouth. And as for the Bore, if he heare the grunting of a Sovv that ſeekes to be brimmed, unleſſe he may come to her, vvill forſake his meat, untill he be leane and poore: and ſhe againe vvill be ſo farre enraged, that ſhe vvill be readie to run upon a man and all to teare him, eſpecially if his cloths be vvhite.

8. 8
   noun

   The period when a sow (“female pig”) is ready to mate; a heat, an oestrus, a rut; also, an act of a boar (“male pig”) and sow mating.

   You ſhall ſay […] Boare […] goeth to his […] Brymme.

Etymology

The verb is derived from Middle English brimmen (“of pigs: to be in heat or rut; to breed; to bear fruit”), either: * modified from brem, breme (“of animals: ferocious, savage; of fire, the sea, a storm, etc.: raging, severe, tempestuous; glorious, splendid; etc.”, adjective) (whence modern English breme (“(obsolete) fierce, stormy, tempestuous”)), from Old English brēme (“(poetic) glorious; famous, renowned”), from Proto-West Germanic *brōmi, from Proto-Germanic *brōmiz (“famous”); or * directly from Old English bremman (“to rage; to roar”) (though not attested in Middle English), from Proto-…