TEEM

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does teem mean? 

• TEEM (verb)
  The verb TEEM has 2 senses:

1. be teeming, be abuzz

2. move in large numbers

  Familiarity information: TEEM used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TEEM (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they teem    ... he / she / it teems   
Past simple: teemed   
Past participle: teemed   
-ing form: teeming   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be teeming, be abuzz

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

pullulate; swarm; teem

Context example:

her mind pullulated with worries

Hypernyms (to "teem" is one way to...):

buzz; hum; seethe (be noisy with activity)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "teem"):

crawl (be full of)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something is ----ing PP

Sentence example:

The streets teem with crowds

Also:

teem in (exist in large quantity)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Move in large numbers

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

pour; pullulate; stream; swarm; teem

Context example:

beggars pullulated in the plaza

Hypernyms (to "teem" is one way to...):

crowd; crowd together (to gather together in large numbers)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "teem"):

pour out; spill out; spill over (be disgorged)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s PP

 Context examples 

If it should be, and he came to London, with his teeming millions....

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Yet his very elbows, when he had his back towards me, seemed to teem with the expression of his fixed opinion that I was extremely young.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In 2011, astronomers announced that our galaxy is likely teeming with free-floating planets.

(Lone Planetary-Mass Object Found in Family of Stars, NASA)

Labour, I believe, is sometimes difficult to obtain in that portion of our colonial possessions where it will be our lot to combat with the teeming soil.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I have told them how the measure of leaving his own barren land—barren of peoples—and coming to a new land where life of man teems till they are like the multitude of standing corn, was the work of centuries.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Compressing her lips, in sympathy with the snap, Miss Murdstone opened it—opening her mouth a little at the same time—and produced my last letter to Dora, teeming with expressions of devoted affection.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Lucy lies in the tomb of her kin, a lordly death-house in a lonely churchyard, away from teeming London; where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill, and where wild flowers grow of their own accord.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

“I am extremely happy to hear it. Although a mind like my friend Copperfield's'—to Uriah and Mrs. Heep—“does not require that cultivation which, without his knowledge of men and things, it would require, still it is a rich soil teeming with latent vegetation—in short,” said Mr. Micawber, smiling, in another burst of confidence, “it is an intellect capable of getting up the classics to any extent.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)