teem

Etymology 1

From Middle English temen (“to bear, to support”), from Old English tēman (“to give birth”).

verb

1. To be stocked to overflowing.
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
   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. 2013-06-22, “Snakes and ladders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 76
3. (obsolete) To bring forth young, as an animal; to produce fruit, as a plant; to bear; to be pregnant; to conceive; to multiply.

Etymology 2

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.

verb

1. (archaic) To empty.
   [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 3

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.

verb

1. (obsolete, rare) To think fit.
   Ah, said he, thou hast confessed and bewrayed all, I could teem it to rend thee in pieces 1603, George Gifford, Dialogue of Witches