pomme

POMME POMMEL, noun [Latin pomum, an apple, or a similar fruit.] 1. A knob or ball. 2 Chronicles 4:1. 2. The knob on the hilt of a sword; the protuberant part of a saddle-bow; the round knob on the frame of a chair, etc. POMMEL, verb transitive [from the noun.] To beat as with a pommel, that is, with something thick or bulky; to bruise. [The French se pommeler, to grow dapple, to curdle, is from the same source; but the sense is to make knobs or lumps, and hence to variegate, or make spots like knobs. The Welsh have from the same root, or pwmp, a mass, pwmpiaw, to form a round mass, and to thump, to bang, Eng. to bump.]