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hummel.

A stag that has failed to grow antlers; a cow that has not developed horns.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈhʌm(ə)l/General-American, Received-Pronunciation

  1. A stag that has failed to grow antlers; a cow that has not developed horns.

    Northern-England · Scotland · also · attributive

  2. Especially in hummel corn: grain that lacks awns (beards or bristles), or has had its awns removed (barley, oats, etc.).

    also · attributive
Where this word comes from

Probably from Middle English hamelen (“to maim, mutilate; to cut short”), from Old English hamelian (“to hamstring, mutilate”), from Proto-Germanic *hamalōną, *hamlōną (“to mutilate”), from Proto-Indo-European *kem- (“hornless; mutilated”). Cognate with Dutch hamel (“wether”), English hamble, Low German hommel, hummel (“an animal lacking horns”), humlich, dialectal hommlich (“lacking horns”), Bavarian humlet (“lacking horns”), German hammeln, hämmeln (“to geld”), Icelandic hamla (“to maim, mutilate”). OxfordDictionaries.com suggests that the “ear of grain with its awns removed” sense preceded the “animal without antlers or horns” sense.

verb/ˈhʌm(ə)l/General-American, Received-Pronunciation

  1. Of an animal: to remove the horns; to poll.

    transitive

  2. To separate (barley, oats, etc.) from the awns.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Probably from Middle English hamelen (“to maim, mutilate; to cut short”), from Old English hamelian (“to hamstring, mutilate”), from Proto-Germanic *hamalōną, *hamlōną (“to mutilate”), from Proto-Indo-European *kem- (“hornless; mutilated”). Cognate with Dutch hamel (“wether”), English hamble, Low German hommel, hummel (“an animal lacking horns”), humlich, dialectal hommlich (“lacking horns”), Bavarian humlet (“lacking horns”), German hammeln, hämmeln (“to geld”), Icelandic hamla (“to maim, mutilate”). OxfordDictionaries.com suggests that the “ear of grain with its awns removed” sense preceded the “animal without antlers or horns” sense.

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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.