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Seem vs Teem - What's the difference?

seem | teem |

As a proper noun seem

is shem.

As a verb teem is

to be stocked to overflowing or teem can be (archaic) to empty or teem can be (obsolete|rare) to think fit.

seem

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • (lb) To appear; to look outwardly; to be perceived as.
  • * 1813 (14thc.), (Dante Alighieri), The Vision of Hell as translated by The Rev. H. F. Cary.
  • *:He, from his face removing the gross air, / Oft his left hand forth stretch'd, and seem'd alone / By that annoyance wearied.
  • *
  • *:They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. Otherwise his pelt would not have been so perfect. And why else was he put away up there out of sight?—and so magnificent a brush as he had too..
  • *, title=The Mirror and the Lamp
  • , chapter=2 citation , passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired.}}
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=19 citation , passage=Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.}}
  • *{{quote-news, year=2012, date=August 5, author=Nathan Rabin
  • , title= TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “I Love Lisa” (season 4, episode 15; originally aired 02/11/1993) , passage=So while Ralph generally seems to inhabit a different, more glorious and joyful universe than everyone else here his yearning and heartbreak are eminently relateable. Ralph sometimes appears to be a magically demented sprite who has assumed the form of a boy, but he’s never been more poignantly, nakedly, movingly human than he is here.}}
  • (lb) To befit; to beseem.
  • :(Spenser)
  • Usage notes

    * This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . See

    Derived terms

    * meseems * seeming * seemingly

    Statistics

    *

    teem

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) , whence also team.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To be stocked to overflowing.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • his mind teeming with schemes of future deceit to cover former villainy
  • To be prolific; to abound.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=76, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Snakes and ladders , passage=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.}}
  • To bring forth young, as an animal; to produce fruit, as a plant; to bear; to be pregnant; to conceive; to multiply.
  • * Shakespeare
  • If she must teem , / Create her child of spleen.

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) (m), from (etyl) .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (archaic) To empty.
  • * 1913 ,
  • *:“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 team it in your saucer and sup it up. It somehow takes a’ the taste out of it.”
  • To pour (especially with rain)
  • To pour, as steel, from a melting pot; to fill, as a mould, with molten metal.
  • Etymology 3

    See tame (adjective) and compare beteem.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete, rare) To think fit.
  • Anagrams

    * meet * mete ----