seam
/ˈsiːm/
seam noun: a folded-back and stitched piece of fabric; especially, the stitching that joins two or more pieces of fabric.
Noun (1)
seam (plural seams)
- A folded-back and stitched piece of fabric; especially, the stitching that joins two or more pieces of fabric.
- Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […] Frills, ruffles, flounces, lace, complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN
- A suture.
- A thin stratum, especially of an economically viable material such as coal or mineral.
- He even roused himself to go to the mines once more: […]. He sat there, crippled, in a tub, with the under-ground manager showing him the seam with a powerful torch.1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter IX, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, [Germany?]: Privately printed, →OCLC, page 126
- The stitched equatorial seam of a cricket ball; the sideways movement of a ball when it bounces on the seam.
- A joint formed by mating two separate sections of materials.
- Seams can be made or sealed in a variety of ways, including adhesive bonding, hot-air welding, solvent welding, using adhesive tapes, sealant, etc.
- A line or depression left by a cut or wound; a scar; a cicatrix.
- A line of junction; a joint.
- Precepts should be so finely wrought together[…]that no coarse seam may discover where they join.1697, Joseph Addison, Essay on Virgil's Georgics
Verb
seam (third-person singular simple present seams, present participle seaming, simple past and past participle seamed)
- To put together with a seam.
- Thus, seamed with many scars, / Bursting these prison bars, / Up to its native stars / My soul ascended!, The Skeleton in Armor
- To make the appearance of a seam in, as in knitting a stocking; hence, to knit with a certain stitch, like that in such knitting.
- To mark with a seam or line; to scar.
- Seam'd o'er with wounds which his own sabre gave.1725–1726, Homer, “Book 4”, in [William Broome, Elijah Fenton, Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC
- To crack open along a seam.
- Later their lips began to parch and seam.1880, Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
- Of the ball, to move sideways after bouncing on the seam.
- Of a bowler, to make the ball move thus.
Noun (2)
seam (plural seams)
- An old English measure of grain, containing eight bushels.
- An old English measure of glass, containing twenty-four weys of five pounds, or 120 pounds.
- As white glass was 6s. the 'seam', containing 24 'weys' (pise, or pondera) of 5 lb., and 2½ lb. was reckoned sufficient to make one foot of glazing, the cost of glass would be 1½d. leaving 2½d. for labour.1952, L. F. Salzman, Building in England, page 175
Noun (3)
seam (uncountable)
- Grease; tallow; lard.
- shall the proud lord
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam
And never suffers matter of the worldc. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and... - scour their rusty shields with seam1697, Virgil, “The Seventh Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
- shall the proud lord
seam meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu
seam in Tamil
- தைப்புத் தடம், தையல் விளிம்பு, பொருத்து, மடிப்பு, அடுக்கிடைக் கோடு, அடுக்கிடை கோடு
seam in Urdu
- درز, جوڑ, سیون, سلائی
seam in Bengali
- সেলাই, জোড়া, স্তর
seam in Telugu
- సీమ్
More languagesFewer languages
- seam in Malayalam
- പുടകം puṭakaṁ
- seam in Kannada
- ದಳೆ
- seam in Gujarati
- સીમ
- seam in Sanskrit
- संधि saṃdhí
- seam in Arabic
- دَرْز darz
- seam in Persian
- درز darz
- seam in Thai
- ตะเข็บ dtà-kèp
Examples of seam in a sentence
- A small tear is easy to mend, if it is on the seam.
- Stop playing with the seam of the tablecloth! You’ll unravel it.
- The seam of coal daylighted at a cliff by the river.
Forms of seam
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | seams |
| alternative form | saim |
| alternative form (obsolete) | seme |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | seams |
| present participle | seaming |
| past participle | seamed |
| past | seamed |
Origin of seam
From Middle English seem, seme, from Old English sēam (“seam”), from Proto-West Germanic *saum, from Proto-Germanic *saumaz (“that which is sewn”). Cognate with Dutch zoom (“hem, edge”), German Saum (“hem, edge”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål søm (“seam”), Norwegian Nynorsk saum (“seam”), Swedish söm (“seam”).
From the noun seam.
From Old English sēam (“a burden”), from Latin sagma (“saddle”).
Words formed from seam
- Bermuda seam
- coal seam
- devil seam
- double lock standing seam
- enseam
- felled seam
- field seam
- flat-felled seam
- flat-fell seam
- four-seam fastball
- French seam
- inseam
- interseam
- monk's seam
- outseam
- overseam
- princess seam
- quarter seam
- seam allowance
- seam carving
- seamfree
- seamhead
- seam lace
- seamless
- seamlet
- seamlike
- seamline
- seam presser
- seam set
- seamster
- seamstress
- seamy
- sideseam
- standing seam
- two-seam fastball
- reseam
- seamer
- unseam
Phrases with seam
Words that rhyme with seam
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- deem
- dream
- scream
- team
- academe
- bream
- downstream
- esteem
- forebeam
- supreme
- teem
- A team
- ice cream
- under one's own steam
- abeam
- addeem
- astream
- beseem
- centime
- decime
- deme
- fleam
- inseam
- Karim
- preem
- rheme
- seem
- agleam
- breme
- buffer beam
- distream
- foredream
- haem
- heme
- Kareem
- kilim
- leam
- leme
- let off steam
- meem
- misesteem
- misseem
- neem
- on stream
- prime
- redream
- reem
- reim
Questions about seam
- What does seam mean?
- Seam means a folded-back and stitched piece of fabric; especially, the stitching that joins two or more pieces of fabric.
- What is seam in Tamil?
- Seam in Tamil is தைப்புத் தடம், தையல் விளிம்பு, பொருத்து. See Seam meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is seam?
- Seam can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce seam?
- Seam is pronounced /ˈsiːm/.
- What is the plural of seam?
- The plural of seam is seams.
Words near seam in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: seam (page history and authors); seam (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); seam (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); seam (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); seam (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); പുടകം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); seam (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); seam (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); संधि (Sanskrit) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-seem.ogg, en-au-seam.ogg.
Cite this entry: “seam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/seam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.