deem
Pluraldeems
- 1To regard or consider someone or something as being a certain way, according to one's beliefs or estimation.
Critics deem the new policy a step backward for public health.
The committee deemed the application incomplete and returned it.
Similarconsider
Note
The construction is the point here. The verb takes an object and then states the verdict on it, as in deemed his efforts insufficient. When the thing judged is an action, a placeholder it takes the object slot and the action follows: deeming it sinful to shed human blood. Consider fits the same frame, but deem keeps a trace of the verdict from the old judicial meaning.
- 2To form or hold an opinion after consideration; to suppose or judge something to be the case.
Many economists deem a recession likely within the year.
The board deemed it necessary to postpone the vote.
Similarconsider, judge, think, believe
Note
Unlike the "regard as" sense, this one can take a whole clause. In John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Christian says, "I deem I have half a guess of you." Kenelm Digby writes of a man who does "really deem the weather to be cold." What separates it from think is the weighing: it names an opinion reached on consideration, not a passing thought.
- 3To pass judgment on someone; to condemn or sentence a person.
Similarjudge
Note
The courtroom sense the word began with. Old English dēman meant "to decide, decree," and its Germanic ancestor *dōmijaną meant "to judge, think." Here the judgment falls on a person: to deem someone was to sentence or doom them. Modern readers meet it only in old texts. In current English, use judge, condemn or sentence instead.
Less common meanings
- 4To adjudge or decree something formally; to issue an official ruling or order on a matter.
Similarjudge
Note
Here the judgment is itself the ruling: when an authority deemed a thing so, the matter was settled. The East India Act No. VII of 1843 lets the Governor in Council of Fort St. George set up a court wherever he "deems it expedient," a phrase poised between deciding and decreeing. Once the binding force drops away, what remains is the everyday "consider" meaning.
- 5To dispense justice or administer the law; to carry out legal authority over a matter.
In each shire the reeve would deem the law on the king's behalf.
The bishop deemed justice in disputes between the villages.
Similarjudge
Note
Here the object is not the accused but the law itself: one deemed justice the way one now dispenses or administers it. The difference from the sentencing sense lies in the object. In that sense a person is deemed; in this one, justice is. It belongs wholly to older English, and administer and dispense do its work today.
- 6An opinion, judgment, or surmise; a view held about something.
Her deem was that the stranger meant no harm.
The old sailor gave his deem on the coming weather.
Note
The noun the verb produced. Middle English deme, formed from the verb, named the opinion itself rather than the act of forming it. It has long since dropped out of use. A writer today would say opinion, judgment or surmise, and a deem in modern prose reads as deliberate archaism.
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Origins
From Middle English dēmen ("to judge, condemn, sentence, or believe"), from Old English dēman ("to decide, decree, deem"), going back through Proto-Germanic *dōmijaną ("to judge, think") to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to set, put." It is related to the word 'doom' and to Swedish döma and Dutch doemen.
From Middle English deme, formed from the verb (see etymology above).