teem

English

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /tiːm/
  • Audio (UK):(file)
  • Rhymes: -iːm
  • Homophone: team

Etymology 1

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

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. (of rain, snow, etc) To fall prolifically.
    • 1895, Jane Barlow, Strangers at Lisconnel: A Second Series of Irish Idylls, page 45:
      "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; […] "
    • 1912, Ainslee's, page 137:
      ... rain teemed from the overcast skies, cold and penetrating, and life began to look like one enormous funeral procession.
    • 2003, Joel Turnipseed, Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir, Minnesota Historical Society Press, →ISBN, page 26:
      The snow teemed like white bugs against Mark's windshield for the entire long, silent, thirty-five-mile drive out to her new-rich fantasy- "The Farm" that she shared with my stepfather, Bill :  […]
    • 2010 October 24, Clive Webster, The Missing Model, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 116:
      [As] rain teemed down, the passenger peered out from the tinted window.
    • 2014 November 18, John Swinfield, Knock Down Ginger, eBook Partnership, →ISBN:
      Rain teemed from a moonless sky. Splashing in white dashes on the boating lake. Puddles grew at the feet of a man in a crash helmet and a long dark riding coat. Rain streamed down his goggles as he watched Miriam's window.
    • 2015 August 4, Daryl Wood Gerber, Fudging the Books, Penguin, →ISBN, page 112:
      Rain teemed down in sheets. I closed all the windows, took a quick shower, threw on jeans and a silk turtleneck sweater, grabbed an energy bar, and drove to work. Rain pelted the pavement as I cut across the parking lot  […]
    • 2018 May 28, A Hanson, A Dream of Unknowing: Tales from a Carpathian Witch, BookRix, →ISBN:
      ... snow teemed upon The Clearing. The cloying wetness of the stuff rose up above his elbows as he, dog-like, lurched on fours towards the centre of the sleeping meadow, as if meaning to out-strip his fellows and flee. But he gurgled back […]
    • 2018 December 11, Tanith Lee, The Secret Books of Paradys, Open Road Media, →ISBN:
      ... rain teemed round me, making everything unstable, shifting and falling down; my condition would not matter.
  4. (obsolete) To bring forth young, as an animal; to produce fruit, as a plant; to bear; to be pregnant; to conceive; to multiply.
Synonyms
Derived terms
English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *dewk- (0 c, 74 e)
Translations

Noun

teem (plural teems)

  1. A downpour (of rain).
    • 1851, William Kelly (J.P.), An Excursion to California Over the Prairie, Rocky Mountains, and Great Sierra Nevada, with a Stroll Through the Diggings and Ranches of that Country, page 147:
      ... 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 […]
    • 1908, The Living Age, page 684:
      ... under the great teems of rain, and houldin' up the grandest new green umbrella ever you laid eyes on. Fine it was entirely, and an iligant body I was consaitin' meself, goodness forgive me.
    • 2019 August 20, Seamus Heaney, 100 Poems, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN:
      ... a teem of rain and the geranium tremens.
    • 2003, Heather Spears, The Flourish: Murder in the Family, Ekstasis Editions, →ISBN, page 362:
      ... a teem of rain, and blast of wind; and Katie felt a terrible, deep cold, as if it had got down into her bones and she would never be warm again.

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. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
    3. 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”)

Portuguese

Verb

teem

  1. pre-reform spelling (used until 1943 in Brazil and 1945 in Portugal) of têm
    • 1880, Maria Amalia Vaz de Carvalho, “As filhas de Victor Hugo [The daughters of Victor Hugo]”, in Contos e phantasias [Short stories and fantasies]‎[1], 2nd edition, Lisbon: Parceria Antonio Maria Pereira, published 1905, page 304:
      Ah! é que umas são a ignorancia na sua perfeição mais divina, outras guardam na bocca o gosto amargo de todos os fructos vedados que teem devorado!
      Ah! It is that some embody ignorance in its most divine perfection, while others carry in their mouth the bitter taste of all the forbidden fruits they have devoured!

Usage notes

In Portugal between 1911 and 1945, as well as in Brazil before 1943, the third-person plural present indicative of ter was spelled teem. The spelling têm was later introduced.

See more in the usage notes at veem.

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