Etymology Dictionary

PALM,  the inner part of the hand; the name of a tree.  (1. F.—L.; 2. L.)   1. The sense of 'flat hand' is the more original, the tree being named from its flat spreading leaves, which bear some resemblance to the hand spread out.   Yet it is remarkable that the word was first known in England in the sense of palm-tree.   To take the orig. sense first, we find M.E. paume, the palm of the hand, P. Plowman, B. xvii. 141, 147, 150, 153.—F. paume, 'the palme of the hand;' Cot.—Lat. palma, the palm of the hand. + Gk. παλάμη. + A.S. folm; Grein, i. 311.   Root uncertain; see Fick, i. 671.   Allied to A.S. folm is E. fumble; see Fumble.   2. We find A.S. palm, a palm-tree; borrowed directly from Latin.   'Palma, palm-twig, vel palm;' Wright's Vocab. i. 32, col. 2.   ¶ We may note that the Lat. spelling has prevailed over the French, as in psalm, &c.   Der. (from the former sense) palm-ate, from Lat. palm-atus; palm-ist-r-y, used by Sir T. Browne in his Vulg. Errors, b. v. c. 24, pt. 1, and coined by adding the suffixes -ist- (of Gk. origin), and -r-y (= F. -er-ie, Lat. -ar-iu-); also (from the latter sense) palm-er, M.E. palmere, Chaucer, C. T. 13, King Horn, ed. Lumby, 1027, i.e. one who bears a palm-branch in token of having been to the Holy Land; palm-er-worm, Joel, i. 4, ii. 25, a caterpillar supposed to be so called from its wandering about like a pilgrim, and also simply called palmer (see Eastwood and Wright's Bible Wordbook); Palm-sunday, M.E. palme-suneday, O. Eng. Miscellany, ed. Morris, p. 39, l. 65; palm-y, Hamlet, i. 1. 113.   ➩ The palmer or palmer-worm may be named from prov. E. palm, the catkin of a willow; but we also find palmer in the sense of wood-louse, and in Holliband's Dict., ed. 1593, a palmer is described as 'a worme having a great many feete;' see Halliwell.   It makes no ultimate difference.