seam

See also: seám

English

A flat seam in fabric

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /siːm/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Homophones: seem, seme
  • Rhymes: -iːm

Etymology 1

From Middle English seem, seme, from Old English sēam (“seam”), from Proto-Germanic *saumaz (“that which is sewn”). Cognate with West Frisian seam, Dutch zoom, German Saum, Swedish söm.

Noun

seam (plural seams)

  1. (sewing) A folded-back and stitched piece of fabric; especially, the stitching that joins two or more pieces of fabric.Wp
    • 1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN:
      Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […]  Frills, ruffles, flounces, lace, complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.
  2. A suture.
  3. A thin stratum, especially of coal or mineral.
  4. (cricket) The stitched equatorial seam of a cricket ball; the sideways movement of a ball when it bounces on the seam.
  5. An old English measure of grain, containing eight bushels.
  6. An old English measure of glass, containing twenty-four weys of five pounds, or 120 pounds.
    • 1952, L. F. Salzman, Building in England, p. 175.
      As white glass was 6s. the 'seam', containing 24 'weys' (pise, or pondera) of 5 lb., and 2½ lb. was reckoned sufficient to make one foot of glazing, the cost of glass would be 1½d. leaving 2½d. for labour.
  7. (construction) A joint formed by mating two separate sections of materials.
    Seams can be made or sealed in a variety of ways, including adhesive bonding, hot-air welding, solvent welding, using adhesive tapes, sealant, etc.
  8. A line or depression left by a cut or wound; a scar; a cicatrix.
  9. (figuratively) A line of junction; a joint.
    • Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
      Precepts should be so finely wrought together […] that no coarse seam may discover where they join.
Derived terms
Translations
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Verb

seam (third-person singular simple present seams, present participle seaming, simple past and past participle seamed)

  1. To put together with a seam.
  2. To make the appearance of a seam in, as in knitting a stocking; hence, to knit with a certain stitch, like that in such knitting.
  3. To mark with a seam or line; to scar.
    • Alexander Pope
      Seamed o'er with wounds which his own sabre gave.
  4. To crack open along a seam.
    • L. Wallace
      Later their lips began to parch and seam.
  5. (cricket) Of the ball, to move sideways after bouncing on the seam.
  6. (cricket) Of a bowler, to make the ball move thus.
Quotations
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Skeleton in Armor:
    Thus, seamed with many scars, / Bursting these prison bars, / Up to its native stars / My soul ascended!

Etymology 2

See saim.

Noun

seam (plural seams)

  1. (Britain, dialect, obsolete) grease; tallow; lard
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

Anagrams

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