Palmer

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈpɑːmə/

Definitions

1. A person who has made a religious journey to a sacred place, especially to Jerusalem in medieval times ; a way to hold a golf club using the entire palm for control ; a family name carried by various individuals
2. Someone who has travelled to a holy site as a sign of devotion ; a golf grip technique involving wrapping the palm around the club ; a last name shared by many people
3. An individual who has undertaken a pilgrimage to sacred grounds, notably the Holy Land ; a style of gripping a golf club with the palm of the hand ; a personal surname used by people

Etymology: Pilgrims who had visited the Holy Land often brought back a palm frond as proof, and that souvenir gave them their name. The word traces back to Latin "palma," meaning palm tree, which passed into Medieval Latin as "palmārius," and then into Old French as "paumier." English took the term from Anglo-Norman "palmer," so a palmer was literally a man carrying a palm. The sense of the word has stayed close to its origin. A palmer was a wandering religious traveller, typically going from shrine to shrine rather than making one fixed journey, and the palm was the visible sign of having reached the holy places. The word also became a verb, to palm, meaning to conceal something in the hand. That sense has nothing to do with pilgrims. It comes from the palm of the hand itself, the same Latin root, which shows how one ancient word for a tree gave English both a traveller's title and a conjuror's trick.