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Teem
Definitions
- 1 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[…]"
- 1 To be stocked to overflowing.
"But well he knew his teeming pangs were vain, Till Midwife Dryden eas’d his labouring Brain;"
- 2 To empty. archaic
"[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."
- 3 To think fit. obsolete, rare
"Ah, said he, thou hast confessed and bewrayed all, I could teem it to rend thee in pieces"
- 4 move in large numbers wordnet
- 5 To be prolific; to abound; to be rife.
"Fish teem in this pond."
Show 6 more definitions
- 6 To pour (especially with rain)
- 7 be teeming, be abuzz wordnet
- 8 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; […]""
- 9 To pour, as steel, from a melting pot; to fill, as a mould, with molten metal.
- 10 To bring forth young, as an animal; to produce fruit, as a plant; to bear; to be pregnant; to conceive; to multiply. obsolete
"If she must teem, / Create her child of spleen."
- 11 To drain the water from (boiled potatoes etc.). Ireland, Scotland
Etymology
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).
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).
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.
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.
See also for "teem"
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