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).
1
To be stocked to overflowing.
But well he knew his teeming pangs were vain, Till Midwife Dryden eas’d his labouring Brain;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:
his mind teeming with schemes of future deceit to cover former villainy1815 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:
2
To be prolific; to abound; to be rife.
Fish teem in this pond.
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.1944 November and December, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 341:
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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.2013 June 22, “Snakes and ladders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 76:
3
Of rain To fall prolifically.
Snow; etc; snow; etc
"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; […]"1895, Jane Barlow, Strangers at Lisconnel: A Second Series of Irish Idylls, page 45:
... rain teemed from the overcast skies, cold and penetrating, and life began to look like one enormous funeral procession.1912, Ainslee's, page 137:
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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 : […]2003, Joel Turnipseed, Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir, Minnesota Historical Society Press, →ISBN, page 26:
[As] rain teemed down, the passenger peered out from the tinted window.2010 October 24, Clive Webster, The Missing Model, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 116:
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.2014 November 18, John Swinfield, Knock Down Ginger, eBook Partnership, →ISBN:
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 […]2015 August 4, Daryl Wood Gerber, Fudging the Books, Penguin, →ISBN, page 112:
4
Obsolete To bring forth young, as an animal; to produce fruit, as a plant; to bear; to be pregnant; to conceive; to multiply.
If she must teem, / Create her child of spleen.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]:
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).
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[…]1851, William Kelly (J.P.), An Excursion to California Over the Prairie, Rocky Mountains, and Great Sierra Nevada, with a Stroll Through the Diggings and Ranches of that Country, page 147:
... under the great teems of rain, and houldin' up the grandest new green umbrella ever you laid eyes on. Fine it was entirely, and an iligant body I was consaitin' meself, goodness forgive me.1908, The Living Age, page 684:
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... a teem of rain and the geranium tremens.2019 August 20, Seamus Heaney, 100 Poems, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN:
... a teem of rain, and blast of wind; and Katie felt a terrible, deep cold, as if it had got down into her bones and she would never be warm again.2003, Heather Spears, The Flourish: Murder in the Family, Ekstasis Editions, →ISBN, page 362:
teem
verb
Etymology 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.
[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.1849, G. C. Greenwell, A Glossary of Terms used in the Coal Trade of Northumberland and Durham:
“Are you sure they’re good lodgings?” she asked. “Yes—yes. Only—it’s a winder when you have to pour your own tea out—an’ nobody to grouse if you teem it in your saucer and sup it up. It somehow takes a’ the taste out of it.”1913, D. H. Lawrence, “ Chapter 9 on Wikisource.Wikisource ”, in Sons_and_Lovers:
2
To pour (especially with rain)
3
To pour, as steel, from a melting pot; to fill, as a mould, with molten metal.
Etymology 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.