brim

Etymology 1

From Middle English brim, from Old English brim (“surf, flood, wave, sea, ocean, water, sea-edge, shore”), from Proto-Germanic *brimą (“turbulence, surge; surf, sea”), from Proto-Germanic *bremaną (“to roar”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrem- (“to hum, make a noise”). Cognate with Icelandic brim (“sea, surf”), Old English brymm, brym (“sea, waves”), Old English bremman (“to rage, roar”), Dutch brommen (“to hum, buzz”), German brummen (“to hum, drone”), Latin fremō (“roar, growl”, verb), Ancient Greek βρέμω (brémō, “roar, roar like the ocean”, verb).

noun

1. (obsolete) The sea; ocean; water; flood.

Etymology 2

From Middle English brim, brem, brimme (“margin, edge of a river, lake, or sea”), probably from Middle English brim (“sea, ocean, surf, shore”). See above. Cognate with Dutch berm (“bank, riverbank”), Bavarian Bräm (“border, stripe”), German Bräme, Brame (“border, edge”), Danish bræmme (“border, edge, brim”), Swedish bräm (“border, edge”), Icelandic barmur (“edge, verge, brink”). Related to berm.

noun

1. An edge or border (originally specifically of the sea or a body of water).
   A primrose by a river ' s brim 1819, “A Portrait”, in Peter Bell
2. The topmost rim or lip of a container.
   The toy box was filled to the brim with stuffed animals.
   Saw I that insect on this goblet's brim / I would remove it with an anxious pity. 1813, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Remorse
3. A projecting rim, especially of a hat.
   He turned the back of his brim up stylishly.

verb

1. (intransitive) To be full to overflowing.
   The room brimmed with people.
   2006 New York Times It was a hint of life in a place that still brims with memories of death, a reminder that even five years later, the attacks are not so very distant.
   Djokovic, brimming with energy and confidence, needed little encouragement and came haring in to chase down a drop shot in the next game, angling away the backhand to break before turning to his supporters to celebrate. July 3, 2011, Piers Newbury, “Wimbledon 2011: Novak Djokovic beats Rafael Nadal in final”, in BBC Sport
2. (transitive) To fill to the brim, upper edge, or top.

Etymology 3

Either from breme, or directly from Old English bremman (“to roar, rage”) (though not attested in Middle English).

verb

1. Of pigs: to be in heat, to rut.

Etymology 4

See breme.

adj

1. (obsolete) Fierce; sharp; cold.
   H.P. Lovecraft (1937), “The Thing on the Doorstep”, in The Rats in the Walls and Other Stories, Richmond: Alma Classics, published 2015, →ISBN, page 339: “There was, I thought, a trace of very profound and very genuine irony in the timbre – not the flashy, meaninglessly jaunty pseudo-irony of the callow “sophisticate,” which Derby had habitually affected, but something brim, basic, pervasive and potentially evil.”