teem
English
Etymology 1
From Middle English temen (“to bear, to support”), from Old English tēman (“to give birth”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /tiːm/
Audio (UK) (file) - Rhymes: -iːm
- Homophone: team
Verb
teem (third-person singular simple present teems, present participle teeming, simple past and past participle teemed)
- To be stocked to overflowing.
- 1685, Matthew Prior, “A Satyr on the modern Translators”, in H. Bunker Wright, Monroe K. Spears, editors, The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, volume I, Second edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1971, page 20:
- But well he knew his teeming pangs were vain,
Till Midwife Dryden eas’d his labouring Brain;
- 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], OCLC 742335644:
- his mind teeming with schemes of future deceit to cover former villainy
-
- To be prolific; to abound; to be rife.
- Fish teem in this pond.
- 1944 November and December, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 341:
- The steel works, with their Siemens furnaces, the rail-rolling mill with its enormous single-cylinder engine fitted with Corliss valve gear, and the forge in which were installed the great steam hammers and hydraulic presses—these were teeming with interest, and the best way to pick up information was to work with the millwrights.
- 2013 June 22, “Snakes and ladders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 76:
- Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins.
- (obsolete) To bring forth young, as an animal; to produce fruit, as a plant; to bear; to be pregnant; to conceive; to multiply.
- c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene iv]:
- If she must teem, / Create her child of spleen.
-
Related terms
English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *dewk- (0 c, 70 e)
Translations
overflowing with
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to be prolific; to abound
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to bring forth young or to produce fruit
|
Etymology 2
From Middle English temen (“to drain”), from Old Norse tœma, from Proto-Germanic *tōmijaną (“to empty, make empty”). Related to English toom (“empty, vacant”). More at toom.
Verb
teem (third-person singular simple present teems, present participle teeming, simple past and past participle teemed)
- (archaic) To empty.
- 1849, G. C. Greenwell, A Glossary of Terms used in the Coal Trade of Northumberland and Durham
- [The banksman] also puts the full tubs to the weighing machine, and thence to the skreens, upon which he teems the coals. It is also his duty to keep an account of the quantity of coals and stones drawn each day.
- 1913, D. H. Lawrence, “
Chapter 9 on Wikisource.Wikisource ”, in Sons_and_Lovers:- “Are you sure they’re good lodgings?” she asked.
“Yes—yes. Only—it’s a winder when you have to pour your own tea out—an’ nobody to grouse if you teem it in your saucer and sup it up. It somehow takes a’ the taste out of it.”
- 1849, G. C. Greenwell, A Glossary of Terms used in the Coal Trade of Northumberland and Durham
- To pour (especially with rain)
- To pour, as steel, from a melting pot; to fill, as a mould, with molten metal.
Translations
to empty
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to pour (rain)
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to pour, to cast, to found; to fill, from a melting pot, with molten metal
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Etymology 3
From Middle English temen (“to be suitable, befit”), from Old English *teman, from Proto-Germanic *temaną (“to fit”). Cognate with Low German temen, tamen (“to befit”), Dutch betamen (“to befit”), German ziemen. See also tame (adjective) and compare beteem.
Verb
teem (third-person singular simple present teems, present participle teeming, simple past and past participle teemed)
- (obsolete, rare) To think fit.
- 1603, George Gifford, Dialogue of Witches
- Ah, said he, thou hast confessed and bewrayed all, I could teem it to rend thee in pieces
- 1603, George Gifford, Dialogue of Witches
Anagrams
- Teme, etem, meet, mete, teme
Dutch
Pronunciation
Audio (file)
Verb
teem
- first-person singular present indicative of temen
- imperative of temen
Farefare
Etymology
Cognate with Moore toeeme (“to change”)
Pronunciation
IPA(key): /téːm/
Verb
teem
- to move something
- Sẽŋɛ ka teem bʋʋsɩ la
- Go move the goats
- Sẽŋɛ ka teem bʋʋsɩ la
Middle English
Noun
teem
- Alternative form of tem (“group”)