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)

  1. To be stocked to overflowing.
  2. 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.
  3. (obsolete) To bring forth young, as an animal; to produce fruit, as a plant; to bear; to be pregnant; to conceive; to multiply.
Derived terms
English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *dewk-‎ (0 c, 70 e)
Translations

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)

  1. (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.”
  2. To pour (especially with rain)
  3. To pour, as steel, from a melting pot; to fill, as a mould, with molten metal.
Derived terms
Translations

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)

  1. (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

Anagrams

Dutch

Pronunciation
  • Audio(file)

Verb

teem

  1. inflection of temen:
    1. first-person singular present indicative
    2. imperative

Farefare

Etymology

Cognate with Moore toeeme (“to change”)

Pronunciation

IPA(key): /téːm/

Verb

teem

  1. to move something
    Sẽŋɛ ka teem bʋʋsɩ la
    Go move the goats

Middle English

Noun

teem

  1. Alternative form of tem (“group”)
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