tame

Etymology 1

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”).

adj

1. Not or no longer wild; domesticated.
   They have a tame wildcat.
2. (chiefly of animals) Mild and well-behaved; accustomed to human contact.
   The lion was quite tame.
3. (figurative) Of a person, well-behaved; not radical or extreme.
4. (obsolete) Of a non-Westernised person, accustomed to European society.
   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. 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 290
5. Not exciting.
   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?”. Feb 15 2015, “Tobacco”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 2, episode 2, John Oliver (actor), via HBO
6. Crushed; subdued; depressed; spiritless.
   tame slaves of the laborious plough a. 1685, Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon, Paraphrase on the 148th Psalm
7. (mathematics, of a knot) Capable of being represented as a finite closed polygonal chain.

verb

1. (transitive) To make (an animal) tame; to domesticate.
   He tamed the wild horse.
2. (intransitive) To become tame or domesticated.
   Tambourines are shy birds and do not tame easily. 2006, Gayle Soucek, Doves, page 78
3. (transitive) To make gentle or meek.
   to tame a rebellion

Etymology 2

From Middle English tamen (“to cut into, broach”). Compare French entamer.

verb

1. (obsolete, UK, dialect) To broach or enter upon; to taste, as a liquor; to divide; to distribute; to deal out.