tame
Part of speech: adj
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: mathematics
sciences
Etymology: From Middle English tame, tome, weak inflection forms of Middle English tam, tom, from Old English tam, tom (“domesticated, tame”), from Proto-West Germanic *tam (“tame”), from Proto-Germanic *tamaz (“brought into the home, tame”), from Proto-Indo-European *demh₂- (“to tame, dominate”).
Cognate with Scots tam, tame (“tame”), Saterland Frisian tom (“tame”), West Frisian tam (“tame”), Dutch tam (“tame”), Low German Low German tamm, tahm (“tame”), German zahm (“tame”), Danish tam (“tame”), Swedish tam (“tame”), Icelandic tamur (“tame”).
The verb is from Middle English tamen, temen, temien, from Old English temian (“to tame”), from Proto-West Germanic *tammjan, from Proto-Germanic *tamjaną (“to tame”).
Inflected forms:
form: tamer
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: tamest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: tames
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: taming
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: tamed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: tamed
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Under human control.
pos: adj
gloss: Docile or tranquil towards humans.
pos: adj
examples: The lion was quite tame.
gloss: Of a person, well-behaved; not radical or extreme.
pos: adj
tags: figuratively
examples: What, for example, were Fraunhofer's lines? McArdle had just been studying the matter with the aid of our tame scientist at the office, and he picked from his desk two of those many-coloured spectral bands which bear a general resemblance to the hat-ribbons of some young and ambitious cricket club.
gloss: Of a non-Westernised person, accustomed to European society.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
examples: The victim was Captain Bickenson, who had gone there from Port Darwin to try the pearling grounds, and for this purpose employed a number of tame blacks about the schooner.
gloss: Not exciting.
pos: adj
examples: This party is too tame for me.
For a thriller, that film was really tame.
Wow! So the implication there is that even 12-year-olds in France will find the movie tame. “Yes, eet was a, an amusing erotic trifle, I supposa. Ze love-making was passable, but, uh, belt play is a leettle pedestriahn, don’t you seenk?”.
gloss: Crushed; subdued; depressed; spiritless.
pos: adj
examples: tame slaves of the laborious plough
gloss: Capable of being represented as a finite closed polygonal chain.
pos: adj
gloss: To make or become tame; to domesticate (an animal).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Tambourines are shy birds and do not tame easily.
None but Adrian could have tamed the motley population of London, which, like a troop of unbitted steeds rushing to their pastures, had thrown aside all minor fears, through the operation of the fear paramount.
He tamed the wild horse.
Richard Wrangham has noted that the domestication of animals usually tames them by slowing down components of the developmental timetable to retain juvenile traits into adulthood, a process called pedomorphy or neoteny.
Due to his ingenuity Homo learned to unleash the energy of wood by taming wild fire and stepped into the pyrocultural age.
gloss: To make submissive.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The governor tames the engine.
gloss: To take control of something that is unruly.
pos: verb
examples: Police have to tame the riots.
Derived words: a wild goose never laid a tame egg
entame
handtame
overtame
pudding and tame
tamely
tameness
untame
retame
tamability
tameability
tameable
tameableness
tameless
tamer
untameable
untameableness
Translations: