teem
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /tiːm/
rhymes: -iːm
homophone: team
Forms: form: teems
form: teeming
form: teemed
form: teemed
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).
Senses: examples: text: But well he knew his teeming pangs were vain,
Till Midwife Dryden eas’d his labouring Brain;
ref: 1685, Matthew Prior, “A Satyr on the modern Translators”, in H. Bunker Wright, Monroe K. Spears, editors, The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, Second edition, volume I, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1971, page 20:
text: his mind teeming with schemes of future deceit to cover former villainy
ref: 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:
glosses: To be stocked to overflowing.
examples: text: Fish teem in this pond.
text: 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.
ref: 1944 November and December, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 341:
text: 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.
ref: 2013 June 22, “Snakes and ladders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 76:
glosses: To be prolific; to abound; to be rife.
examples: text: "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; […]"
ref: 1895, Jane Barlow, Strangers at Lisconnel: A Second Series of Irish Idylls, page 45:
text: ... rain teemed from the overcast skies, cold and penetrating, and life began to look like one enormous funeral procession.
ref: 1912, Ainslee's, page 137:
text: 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 : […]
ref: 2003, Joel Turnipseed, Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir, Minnesota Historical Society Press, →ISBN, page 26:
text: [As] rain teemed down, the passenger peered out from the tinted window.
ref: 2010 October 24, Clive Webster, The Missing Model, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 116:
text: 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.
ref: 2014 November 18, John Swinfield, Knock Down Ginger, eBook Partnership, →ISBN:
text: 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 […]
ref: 2015 August 4, Daryl Wood Gerber, Fudging the Books, Penguin, →ISBN, page 112:
text: ... 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[…]
ref: 2018 May 28, A Hanson, A Dream of Unknowing: Tales from a Carpathian Witch, BookRix, →ISBN:
text: ... rain teemed round me, making everything unstable, shifting and falling down; my condition would not matter.
ref: 2018 December 11, Tanith Lee, The Secret Books of Paradys, Open Road Media, →ISBN:
qualifier: snow; etc; snow; etc
glosses: To fall prolifically.
raw_tags: of rain
examples: text: If she must teem, / Create her child of spleen.
ref: 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, [Act I, scene iv]:
glosses: To bring forth young, as an animal; to produce fruit, as a plant; to bear; to be pregnant; to conceive; to multiply.
Synonyms: swarm
Derived terms: teem with