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berm.

A narrow ledge or shelf, as along the top or bottom of a slope.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/bɜː(ɹ)m/
  1. A narrow ledge or shelf, as along the top or bottom of a slope.

  2. A raised bank or path, especially the bank of a canal opposite the towpath.

  3. One of the flat terraces on the slope of an open-pit mine.

    Australia
  4. A terrace or shelf of sand along a beach, formed above the high tide water level by wave action.

    On some beaches, the berm grows higher in summer and flattens out in the rougher winter seas.
  5. A long mound or bank of earth, used especially as a barrier or to provide insulation.

    A berm separates the Moroccan-controlled and Polisario-controlled parts of Western Sahara.
  6. A small wall along the edge of a bench of an open-pit mine, intended to prevent items falling over the crest.

    Canada · US
  7. A ledge between the parapet and the moat in a fortification.

  8. A strip of land between a street and sidewalk.

    New-Zealand · Pennsylvania
  9. The edge of a road.

    Pennsylvania · Western
Where this word comes from

From Dutch berm (“strip of roadside grass, verge”), probably via French berme, from Middle Dutch barm, baerm, barem (“verge, bank”), from Old Dutch *barm, from Proto-West Germanic *barm, from Proto-Germanic *barmaz (“edge, border, seam”).

verb/bɜː(ɹ)m/
  1. To provide something with a berm

Where this word comes from

From Dutch berm (“strip of roadside grass, verge”), probably via French berme, from Middle Dutch barm, baerm, barem (“verge, bank”), from Old Dutch *barm, from Proto-West Germanic *barm, from Proto-Germanic *barmaz (“edge, border, seam”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.