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Teem and team are not just homophones, they are also etymological kin. Teem comes from Old English tīman or tǣman, which originally meant "to bring forth offspring" or "to give birth to.” That word is related to the ancestor of team, the Old English noun tēam, meaning "offspring, lineage, or group of draft animals." Team can still be used to refer to a brood of young animals, especially pigs or ducks, but both teem and team have otherwise largely left their offspring-related senses behind.
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What is the difference between the verbs teem and team?
If you want to describe an overflowing abundance of something, the word you are looking for is teem. We often see reference to "the teeming masses," "streets teeming with activity," or "forests teeming with life." You want the word team if you are trying to describe pairing two or more things in a coordinated ensemble ("she teamed the oxen together"), or forming some kind of partnership or association ("we are teaming with another organization this year").
Examples of teem in a Sentence
Andrea Thompson, Scientific American, 24 Apr. 2025
Those figures represent a drop from the much larger numbers of salmon, in some years more than 1 million fish, that teemed along California’s Pacific coast in the early 2000s.
—Ian James, Los Angeles Times, 16 Apr. 2025
The men, many of them shirtless, are crowded, teeming, sitting and standing, seemingly at attention, to face the camera from behind bars.
—James Poniewozik, New York Times, 5 Apr. 2025
Cromwell’s middle-aged regrets build poignantly, while brisker pacing and some levity—Cromwell is widowed, and various courtiers take it upon themselves to play matchmaker—lend the proceedings a teeming liveliness.
—Inkoo Kang, New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for teem
Cite this Entry
“Teem.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/teem. Accessed 4 May. 2025.
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