Other forms: climbing, climbed, climbs
To climb is to go up something using your hands as well as your feet. Up a ladder to clear the gutter, up a tree after a cat, up the last hundred metres of a hill with a bike you are no longer riding.
Hands are not required, though: a plane climbs after take-off, a road climbs out of the valley, prices climb all year. Cyclists and walkers use it as a noun — a long climb, a steep climb, the total climb of a route in metres. You also climb INTO a car, climb OUT of a window and climb over a fence, where the point is the awkwardness rather than the height. The B is silent: say it klime, and the past is climbed, never clumb. Someone climbing the ladder is rising at work, and a social climber is chasing better company, which is not a compliment.
1verbclimbTo go up something, using the hands and feet.~49%
“She climbed the ladder and cleared the leaves out of the gutter.”
2verbriseTo rise steadily to a higher level or figure.~15%
“The plane climbed through the cloud and the seatbelt sign went off.”
3verbmoveTo move somewhere with effort, into or out of a tight space especially.~2%
“He climbed into the back of the van among the boxes.”
4nounhardA hard walk or ride upwards, or the distance risen.~34%
“The last climb before the village nearly finished us.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 20 sentences found in the wild and placed 20 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Old English climban goes back to Proto-Germanic *klimbaną, 'to climb, to go up by clinging', which is a nasalised twist on *klibaną, 'to stick, to cleave'. The Proto-Indo-European root behind the whole family means 'to stick' as well. Climbing was about holding on before it was about height, and the same sticky root turns up in clay, glue and clamber.
Proto-Indo-European
*gleybʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*klimbaną — to climb, go up by clinging
Proto-West Germanic
*klimban
Old English
climban — to climb
Middle English
climben
English, today
climb
Built from
From Middle English climben, clymben, from Old English climban (“to climb”), from Proto-West Germanic klimban, from Proto-Germanic klimbaną (“to climb, go up by clinging”), believed to be a nasalised variant of Proto-Germanic klibaną, klibāną (“to stick, cleave”), from Proto-Indo-European gley- (“to stick”). Cognate with West Frisian klimme (“to climb”), Dutch klimmen (“to climb”), German klimmen (“to climb”), Old Norse klembra (“to squeeze”), Icelandic klifra (“to climb”). Related to clamber. See also clay, glue.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA