Oldham

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A town in Greater Manchester in north-western England, located east of Manchester in the Pennine foothills
2. A metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England, situated in the industrial areas northeast of Manchester
3. A municipality in north-western England that forms part of Greater Manchester and lies in the valleys of the southern Pennines

Etymology: Oldham is a place name, so its story is the story of a hill or settlement rather than of a word's meaning shifting. The town's name appears as "Aldehulme" in the Domesday Book, and the most widely given explanation combines Old English "eald" ("old") with Old Norse "holmr" ("holm, islet"). The "holm" element is a Norse contribution, which fits the Scandinavian settlement of northern England, and it survives across many English place names. The first element is less certain. It may instead be the Old English male personal name Alda, so the name could mean something like "Alda's holm." A third possibility, proposed by Alan James in his guide to Brittonic place-name elements, is that the first part comes from a Cumbric or Proto-Brythonic word related to Welsh "allt" ("cliff"). Scholars have not settled between these readings, so the name's exact meaning remains open.