Why are they looming? Are they, somehow woven? Why loom? Am I using this incorrectly? I'm avoiding my own looming deadlines at work to ask this . . .but sometimes I just HAVE to know what you all think!

Good question, CW. The definition of a loom being an apparatus seems to come from an Old English word meaning tool. I have no idea how the definition of "a distorted, threatening appearance of something" evolved, though.

The words are unrelated. The noun is an old word originally for any tool (as in 'heirloom'), while the verb is later and of unknown origin.

I vaguely recall, but cannot now justify it, that the verb first appeared in 'loom large' and referred to the appearance of ships appearing from in the offing. Can anyone confirm or disconfirm this?

The Online Etymology Dictionary says, of the verb,

quote:

1542, perhaps from a Scand. source (cf. dial. Swed. loma, E.Fris. lomen "move slowly"), perhaps a variant from the root of lame (adj.); first used of ships.

Interestingly, the "tool" meaning apparently gave rise to it meaning "penis" in 1400-1600!

Yes, I'd read that. That's what I meant by 'unknown'. :-)

In vision research, looming refers to the increase in size of the retinal image of an object as it gets closer to the observer.

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
lomen "move slowly"), perhaps a variant from the root of lame (adj.); first used of ships.

Any relation to "lumber in its plodding movement meaning?

Interestingly, the "tool" meaning apparently gave rise to it meaning "penis" in 1400-1600! [/QUOTE]

A slow moving penis? A lumbering lingam? Chasing a vagrant vagina, no doubt.

Well! I've been so good about not being naughty on the board, and here I've started another sexual member thread.

*bats eyelashes innocently*

quote:

so good about not being naughty, and here I've started another sexual member thread

It's unavoidable. As the poem notes,

Everything's either concave or convex,
So whatever you see will be something with sex.

But asymptotic, which is highly frustrating!