barm

Meanings

1. 1nouncountableBritishregional

   A soft, round bread roll used for sandwiches, especially in the north-west of England.

   Grammar: Regional usage; people elsewhere would say bread roll or bun. Plural: barms.

   Patterns

   • a barm cake
   • a bacon barm

   He ordered a bacon barm with brown sauce from the cafe.

   Chip barms are a favorite lunch near the football ground.

   She split the barm and filled it with cheese.

2. 2noununcountableold-fashionedtechnical

   The foam that forms on the top of beer or other malt drink as it ferments, once used to make bread rise.

   Grammar: A traditional word, mostly historical, for what brewers now call yeast.

   Patterns

   • the barm of the ale

   The brewer skimmed the barm from the vat.

   Bakers once used ale barm to leaven their dough.

   Foamy barm covered the surface of the working beer.

Word forms

Common combinations

barm cake

A barm cake is the standard Lancashire sandwich roll.

bacon barm

The cafe sells bacon barms from seven in the morning.

chip barm

A chip barm is a sandwich of hot chips in a soft roll.

warm barm

She bought a warm barm from the bakery.

ale barm

Ale barm was the old baker's yeast.

Synonyms and how they differ

bap

Bap is a similar soft roll used in several British regions, but it is more widespread than barm.

bun

Bun is the general word for a small round bread, and it also includes sweet buns, unlike barm.

roll

Roll is the standard everyday word anywhere in English, with no regional character.

cob

Cob is a bread roll term in the Midlands, used where northerners might say barm.

Word family

barmy adjective

originally frothy; now British informal for silly or crazy

barm cake noun

another name for a barm roll

barmbrack noun

an Irish fruit loaf traditionally leavened with yeast

Commonly confused: barm or balm?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “barm”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

Explore more words