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If you feel a sense of doom when asked to define deem, we’re here with some details for your dome (sense 7). While today deem is used generally as a synonym of consider (as in “a movie deemed appropriate for all ages”), its origins are more formal, coming specifically from the realm of law. The oldest meaning of deem, which comes from the Old English verb dēman (relative of dōm, meaning “doom”) is “to sit in judgment upon,” as employed by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queen: “... at th’one side six Judges were dispos’d, / To view and deem the deeds of arms that day.” This sense was obsolete by the early 17th century, and other senses including “to expect or hope” have come and gone, but deem’s use overall has never dimmed. In fact, today’s most common meaning of “to come to think or judge something; to consider” has also been in use since Old English and is still deemed quite common.
Examples of deem in a Sentence
Kapil Komireddi, New Yorker, 10 Apr. 2026
Once Orion is deemed safe to approach, Navy divers can bring their boats up against the bobbing capsule and members of the 16- to 20-person team jump into the water and begin attaching hardware to steady the capsule and prepare it for crew extraction and recovery.
—Miles Doran, CBS News, 10 Apr. 2026
The Charlotte Observer spoke with Hornets president of basketball operations Jeff Peterson, LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller and Coby White to get their takes on why Knueppel should be deemed the NBA’s 2025-26 rookie of the year.
—Roderick Boone, Charlotte Observer, 10 Apr. 2026
The 2026 American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines have been deemed trustworthy by 12 health care organizations that represent over a million pediatric medical professionals.
—Kar-Hai Chu, The Conversation, 10 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for deem
Cite this Entry
“Deem.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deem. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026.
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