Carom (L’amour de l’étymologie III)

L’amour de l’étymologie is a feature exploring the etymology of English words. Today’s entry is carom, also sometimes spelled carrom. Visit this link to hear the folks at Merriam-Webster pronounce it. Lord knows why the OED only uses the international phonetic alphabet. Some people are auditory learners. (…or lazy types like me who haven’t bothered to learn the IPA.)

The first recorded use of the word was by Charles Jones in 1775 in the book Hoyle’s Games improved. An abbreviation of carambole, a noun meaning the red ball used in a game of billiards, it has since developed a distinct meaning. Carom can act as a noun, and refers to a shot in billiards when the cue ball hits two balls in succession. (Need to visualize? Check out this video of Semih Sayginer showing off his caroming skills/knowledge of trajectory angles.)

Carom also has a more generalized meaning when used as an intransitive verb. To carom is to “strike or glance and rebound”. So, flat stones can carom across the surface of a pond when thrown properly. It can also be employed figuratively: Bernard Wolfe wrote in Limbo ‘90 that a “phrase caromed through his mind.” Carom is used figuratively chiefly in the good old US of A.

:: Bibliography ::

“Carom.” Oxford English Dictionary. 2007. 21 Dec. 2007 <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/findword?query_type=word&queryword=carom&find.x=0&find.y=0&find=Find+word>.