teem

Formsteems, teeming, teemed

Pluralteems

1. 1
   verbintransitive

   To be present in great numbers; to abound or be full of something.

   The pond teems with frogs every spring.

   On market day, the streets teem with vendors and shoppers.

   Similarswarm, abound, bustle, crawl

   Note

   Here the abundance lies in the creatures rather than the container, and the verb works from either end: fish teem in this pond, or the pond teems with fish. The progressive suits a scene caught in the act, as in The Economist in 2013: "the world is teeming with goblins." Beside plain abound, teem keeps a trace of restless, multiplying life from its roots in birth.

2. 2
   verbintransitive

   To be stocked so full that the contents seem ready to overflow.

   The harbor teems with fishing boats every weekend.

   Her shelves teem with so many books they seem ready to spill over.

   Similaroverflow, brim, swarm, bristle

   Note

   A sense that grew out of birth: Old English tēman meant "to give birth," from a Germanic word for a bridle that survives as team. Something stocked to overflowing is pictured as brimming with offspring. It takes with, often figuratively, as in Walter Scott's Guy Mannering (1815): "his mind teeming with schemes." Matthew Prior's "teeming pangs" of 1685 still means labor, the older meaning of the obsolete "bear young" sense.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To pour down heavily, especially of rain.

   Rain will teem down before noon if those clouds hold.

   It teemed all night, and the lanes flooded by dawn.

   Similarpour, pelt, bucket

   Oppositedrizzle

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To fall heavily and in great quantity, as snow does.

   Snow teemed down for three days and buried the village.

   By dusk, sleet will teem across the valley.

   Similarpour, pelt

   Note

   Weather has two teems that meet in the middle. This one belongs to the "abound" family, with rain or snow falling as if multiplying, while the "pour" sense descends from a Norse word for emptying. It is intransitive, often followed by down ("rain teemed down"), and can be impersonal, as in Jane Barlow's Strangers at Lisconnel (1895): "it's teemin' powerful."

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A sudden, heavy fall of rain; a downpour.

   We got caught in a sudden teem on the way home.

   The afternoon teem left the gutters overflowing.

   Similardownpour, deluge, cloudburst

   Note

   A rain word that sounds most natural with of rain after it: "a teem of rain," or in the plural, "under the great teems of rain" in The Living Age (1908). Seamus Heaney uses the phrase, and Heather Spears sets "a teem of rain, and blast of wind" side by side. Downpour can stand alone. A teem usually names its rain.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To pour molten metal, such as steel, from a melting pot, or to fill a mold with it.

   The workers teemed the molten steel into the waiting molds.

   Foundry workers teem the metal carefully to avoid trapped gas.

   Similarpour, cast

   Note

   The foundry keeps the root meaning "empty" in plain sight: the melting pot is emptied into the mold. The verb faces both ways. It takes either the metal poured (teem the steel) or the vessel that receives it (teem a mold with molten metal). It is a working use of the archaic "empty" sense.

7. 7
   verbdialectalIrelandScotlandtransitive

   To drain the water off boiled food such as potatoes.

   She teemed the potatoes and mashed them with butter.

   Teem the carrots before you add the sauce.

   Similardrain, strain

   Note

   A kitchen word of Scotland and Ireland: you teem the potatoes, naming the food even though only the water leaves the pot. It is the same "emptying" word as the archaic "empty" sense, turned to a saucepan. Drain is the general verb for the task, and a recipe meant for readers outside those regions should use it.

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