Meaning

noun any of various trees of the genus Ulmus: important timber or shade trees

noun hard tough wood of an elm tree; used for e.g. implements and furniture

originFrom Middle English elme, elm, from Old English elm, from Proto-West Germanic *elm, from Proto-Germanic *elmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁élem (“mountain elm”). See also dialectal Low German Elm, dialectal German Ilm, archaic German Ilme, Norwegian and Swedish alm; also Irish leamh, Latin ulmus, Albanian ulzë (“maple”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0