Etymology
1. O.E.
beam originally "living tree," but by 1000 also "post, ship's timber," from W.Gmc.
*baumoz (cf. O.Fris.
bam, Du.
boom, Ger.
Baum "tree"), perhaps from PIE verb root
*bu- "to grow." Meaning of "ray of light" developed in O.E., probably because it was used by Bede to render L.
columna lucis, Biblical "pillar of fire." Nautical sense of "one of the horizontal transverse timbers holding a ship together" is from 1627, hence "greatest breadth of a ship," and slang
broad in the beam "wide-hipped" (of persons). The verb meaning "emit rays of light" is from c.1440; sense of "to smile radiantly" is from 1893; that of "to direct radio transmissions" is from 1927. To
be on the beam (1941) was originally an aviator's term for "to follow the course indicated by a radio beam." Lewis Carroll may have thought he was inventing
beamish in "Jabberwocky," but it is attested from 1530.
2. Etymology tree
3. Proto-Germanic *bagmaz?
4. Proto-West Germanic *baum
5. Old English bēam
6. Middle English bem
7. English beam
8. From Middle English bem, beem, from Old English bēam (“tree, cross, gallows, column, pillar, wood, beam, splint, post, stock, rafter, piece of wood”), from Proto-West Germanic *baum, from Proto-Germanic *baumaz (“tree, beam, balk”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew- (“to grow, swell”).
9. Cognate with North Frisian Boom, buum (“tree”), Saterland Frisian Boom (“tree”), West Frisian beam (“tree”), Cimbrian pome, póom, puam (“tree”), Dutch boom (“tree”), German Low German Boom (“tree”), German Baum (“tree”), Luxembourgish Bam (“tree”), Mòcheno pa'm (“tree”), Vilamovian baojm (“tree”), Yiddish בוים (boym, “tree”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish bom (“beam”), Icelandic baðmur (“tree”), Gothic 𐌱𐌰𐌲𐌼𐍃 (bagms, “tree”), Albanian bimë (“a plant”). Doublet of boom.
10. The original English meaning of beam ("tree") is preserved in some compound words such as quickbeam.
11. The verb is from Middle English bemen, from Old English bēamian (“to shine, to cast forth rays or beams of light”), from the noun. See: Middle English '
bemen'.
Verbs referencing "beam"
English
binge, German, old spelling
beamen.