teem
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teem¹
- /tiːm/
Sounds like team · Rhymes with -iːm
Where it comes from
From Middle English temen (“to bear, to support”), from Anglian Old English tēman (“to give birth”) (West Saxon Old English tīeman), from Proto-West Germanic *taumijan (“to bridle”), from Proto-Germanic *taumijaną, from *taumaz ("bridle", continued in Modern English as team).
verb teems · teeming · teemed
- To be stocked to overflowing. But well he knew his teeming pangs were vain, Till Midwife Dryden eas’d his labouring Brain;
- To be prolific; to abound; to be rife. Fish teem in this pond.
- To fall prolifically. "Troth, it's teemin' powerful this instiant up there in the mountains. 'Twill be much if you land home afore it's atop of you; […]"
- To bring forth young, as an animal; to produce fruit, as a plant; to bear; to be pregnant; to conceive; to multiply. If she must teem, / Create her child of spleen.
noun teems
- A downpour (of rain). ... a teem of rain that poured down so copiously it ran in surface streamlets over the plains. I may literally say we came to anchor this evening in a sheet of water, the prairie, as far as we could see, presenting the same aqueous[…]
teem²
- /tiːm/
Sounds like team · Rhymes with -iːm
Where it comes from
From Middle English temen (“to drain”), from Old Norse tœma, from Proto-Germanic *tōmijaną (“to empty, make empty”). Cognate to Swedish tömma. Related to English toom (“empty, vacant”). More at toom.
verb teems · teeming · teemed
- To empty. [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.
- To pour (especially with rain)
- To pour, as steel, from a melting pot; to fill, as a mould, with molten metal.
- To drain the water from (boiled potatoes etc.).
teem³
- /tiːm/
Sounds like team · Rhymes with -iːm
Where it comes from
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 teems · teeming · teemed
- To think fit. Ah, said he, thou hast confessed and bewrayed all, I could teem it to rend thee in pieces
