Jim HoltOliver SacksRobert Louis Stevenson
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We're not sure how qualm came to be (it may be related to a similar German word), but we know this word was originally used to refer to a sudden sick feeling, such as nausea or faintness, and then for a sudden attack of usually disturbing emotion, such as grief or doubt. Both these senses are still in use: a person may be described, for example, as experiencing a qualm of nausea or a qualm of fear. These days, though, you’re most likely to hear qualm used in its newest sense, referring to a feeling of uneasiness, particularly about whether a person is following their conscience or better judgment. You’re especially likely to hear this sense of qualm used in negative statements, such as “We have no qualms about telling you what sort of things the word qualm does.”
Examples of qualm in a Sentence
Eddie Mouradian, Vulture, 7 Apr. 2025
There are few qualms over photorealistic images of a cup on a table, but great kerfuffles follow a fake image of the Pope or of Rafah.
—Emmanuel Iduma, ARTnews.com, 21 Mar. 2025
Another qualm for the committee was the status of academic freedom at Hebrew University.
—Shira Li Bartov, Sun Sentinel, 19 Mar. 2025
Another qualm is that diffusion LLM, which is non-deterministic as is autoregression, seems to act in an even less deterministic way.
—Lance Eliot, Forbes, 8 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for qualm
Cite this Entry
“Qualm.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/qualm. Accessed 13 Apr. 2025.
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