teems

Verb (1)

teem (third-person singular simple present teems, present participle teeming, simple past and past participle teemed)

1. To be stocked to overflowing.
   • But well he knew his teeming pangs were vain,
     Till Midwife Dryden eas’d his labouring Brain;1685, Matthew Prior, “A Satyr on the modern Translators”, in H. Bunker Wright, Monroe K. Spears, editors, The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, Second edition, volume I, Oxford: Clarendon Press...
2. To be prolific; to abound; to be rife.
   • Fish teem in this pond.

   Synonyms:

   swarm

3. (snow, etc) To fall prolifically.
   • "Troth, it's teemin' powerful this instiant up there in the mountains. 'Twill be much if you land home afore it's atop of you; […]"1895, Jane Barlow, Strangers at Lisconnel: A Second Series of Irish Idylls, page 45
4. (obsolete) To bring forth young, as an animal; to produce fruit, as a plant; to bear; to be pregnant; to conceive; to multiply.
   • If she must teem, / Create her child of spleen.c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

Verb (2)

teem (third-person singular simple present teems, present participle teeming, simple past and past participle teemed)

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
2. To pour (especially with rain)

See all 10 meanings of teem