Word.ws English Dictionary

burst at the seams

burst at the seams verb: to be too full; to hold more than can be comfortably accommodated.

Verb

burst at the seams (third-person singular simple present bursts at the seams, present participle bursting at the seams, simple past and past participle burst at the seams)

  1. To be too full; to hold more than can be comfortably accommodated.
    • "HS2 is based on the West Coast Main Line bursting at the seams. Both that and the East Coast Main Line are at bursting point for capacity.2020 June 3, Richard Clinnick, “Network News: HS2 progress: "volume of activity is growing"”, in Rail, page 11

Forms of burst at the seams

third-person singular presentbursts at the seams
present participlebursting at the seams
past participleburst at the seams
pastburst at the seams

Questions about burst at the seams

What does burst at the seams mean?
Burst at the seams means to be too full; to hold more than can be comfortably accommodated.
What part of speech is burst at the seams?
Burst at the seams is a verb.
What is the past tense of burst at the seams?
The past tense of burst at the seams is burst at the seams.

Words near burst at the seams in the dictionary

  1. bursopathies
  2. bursopathy
  3. bursopentine
  4. burst
  5. burst a blood vessel
  6. burst at the seams
  7. burst forth
  8. burst in
  9. burst into
  10. burst into flame
  11. burst into flames

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: burst at the seams (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “burst at the seams.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/burst_at_the_seams. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.