Other forms: teeming, teems, teemed
To teem is to be full to overflowing with living things. Teeming with fish, the streets teemed, a teeming city.
It always takes with, and the thing overflowing is usually alive. Teeming rain is a separate sense meaning pouring down, and that comes from an old verb meaning to empty — so rain teeming down is the sky being emptied.
1verbteemTo be full to overflowing with living things.
“The river teems with salmon in the autumn.”
teem is an abounding.
Old English teman means to give birth or produce. The rain sense comes from a separate Old Norse verb meaning to empty.
Proto-Indo-European
*dewk-
Proto-Germanic
*taumijaną
Proto-West Germanic
*taumijan — to bridle
ang-ang
tēman — to give birth
Middle English
temen — to bear, to support
English, today
teem
From Middle English temen (“to bear, to support”), from ang-ang tēman (“to give birth”) (ang-wsx tīeman), from Proto-West Germanic taumijan (“to bridle”), from Proto-Germanic taumijaną, from taumaz ("bridle", continued in Modern English as team).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA