1. Sickness, disease, pestilence, or death. As in "A thousand slain and not of qualm ystorve [not dead of sickness]" (Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales) 2. A sudden sick feeling. As in "A qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering." (Robert Louis Stevenson in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde") 3. Today, a [..]

Old English cwealm (West Saxon) "death, murder, slaughter; disaster; plague; torment," utcualm (Anglian) "utter destruction," probably related to cwellan "to kill, murder, exe [..]

n. A fit of nausea.

plague quelle

(n) uneasiness about the fitness of an action(n) a mild state of nausea

A sudden fit of illness, or sickly languor. Hence, a qualm of conscience = a twinge or uneasiness of conscience.

n.(1) "plague," s.v. qualm sb.\1 OED. KEY: qualm@n1

n1 3 qualm 2 qwalm 1

n.(2) "croaking (of a raven)," s.v. qualm sb.\2 OED. KEY: qualm@n2

n2 1 qualm 1

(now,_|chiefly|UK|_|dialectal) Mortality; plague; pestilence. (now,_|chiefly|UK|_|dialectal) A calamity or disaster. A feeling of apprehension, doubt, fear etc. from 16th c. * date=2012-08-25 | [..]

smoke, particularly when very dense or regarded as unpleasant; fume beißender, dichter, dicker, weißer, schwarzer Qualm; einen starken Qualm ausstoßen : acrid, dense, thick, white, black '''smoke [..]