1. An uneasy feeling about the propriety or rightness of a course of action: "an ignorant ruffianly gaucho, who ... would ... fight, steal, and do other naughty things without a qualm"(W.H. Hudson).
2. A sudden disturbing feeling: "I heard with a qualm of terror the faint, remorseless sound of a telephone ringing somewhere down in the depths of the house"(John Banville).
3. A sudden feeling of sickness, faintness, or nausea.
This time, the Doc (1) wakes up from a nap, (2) is shocked to see a tech wearing a dangling earring in violation of lab rules, (3) chats with Tod, but breaks off when the subject of dues comes up, (4) tells an assistant to prepare him for the palindromization, and (5) chides an associate for feeling qualmish about the experimental procedure, advising her to emulate his own qualities of physical and emotional toughness:
But alas it was not so, In that morning early; When she came to let me know, She found her self but queerly: Qualmish here, qualmish there, Here a qualm, there a qualm, ev'ry where a qualm, Oh how hill of care and strife, Was then the country life.
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