Arm

How to spell arm

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce arm

What does arm mean?

1. nounThe upper limb of the human body, from the shoulder to the hand.
2. verbTo supply or equip with weapons or other means of defence.

Arm in a sentence

• noun

  She broke her arm falling off the ladder.

• verb

  The government refused to arm the rebel forces.

• noun

  He rested his arm on the back of the sofa.

• verb

  Officials moved to arm the patrol units with body cameras.

Where does arm come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word that comes from the Old English earm, meaning the upper limb of the body, and it traces back to a Proto-Germanic root shared with the Dutch arm and the German Arm. That Germanic family in turn descends from an ancient Indo-European root meaning 'to fit together' or 'joint', the same idea that underlies the Latin armus 'shoulder' and arma 'weapons'. Because of that deep link, the body-part word and the weapons word are distant cousins, even though English received the 'weapon' sense separately through Latin arma and Old French armes in the 1200s. The spelling has stayed remarkably simple and stable for over a thousand years, which is why it gives modern writers no trouble at all. It is one of those short, sturdy Anglo-Saxon words that has barely changed shape since before the Norman Conquest.

How the word is built

• arm (a single Old English root meaning the upper limb; no prefix or suffix)