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seam

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English seme,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English sēam (“seam of a garment, suture”),[2][5][6][7] inherited from Proto-Germanic *saumaz.[2][5][8][9] Its cognates are Old Frisian sām (“hem, seam”), Middle Low German sōm, Middle Dutch sōm (modern Dutch zoom), Old High German soum (“hem”) (modern German Saum) and Old Norse saumr (Swedish söm, Danish søm).[6][5][8][10] The Germanic noun is derived from the base of the verb sew, Old English sīwian in Old English,[10][5][11][7] and Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *syū- (“to bind, sew”).[2][4] Outside Germanic it is close to Ancient Greek ὑμήν (humḗn, “membrane”) and Old Prussian schumeno (“shoemaker's thread”),[9][5][12] and Kroonen compares a Sanskrit word for a band or thong.[8] Latin suō (“to sew”), the source of suture, comes from the same root.[6][12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The join made by sewing together the edges of two pieces of cloth or leather: in Ælfric's Homilies, about 1000,[5][6] where Christ's tunic is said to be all without a seam.[14] Old English also used the word for a suture of the skull and for the gaps between a ship's planks.[6][14]

Semantic evolution

From the seam of a garment the word spread early to other lines where two edges meet: the gaps between planks (Old English), a line or groove in rock or stone (about 1330), and a long wound, a scar or a deep wrinkle on the face (about 1400).[6][2][15] The Old English anatomical sense, a suture of the bones of the skull, was obsolete by the late 17th century.[6][15] Chaucer used it figuratively about 1386, of chiding that unsews "the semes of freendshipe".[2][6] The geological sense, a thin layer of coal or ore between thicker strata, is from the 1590s.[2][15] Johnson (1755) defined it first as the doubled edge of cloth where two pieces are sewn together.[16] Later technical uses include the raised stitching of a cricket ball (1888)[6][2] and the joint of sheet metal (early 19th century).[15] The phrase bursting at the seams, of overfullness, is recorded by 1910, and literally of tight clothes by 1907.[2] The verb, to join with a seam, dates from 1582;[6][5][11] it meant to furrow a surface from 1596 and to scar a face from 1695,[6] and in cricket a ball or pitch has been said to seam since 1960.[6] Seamy (1604) began in Shakespeare's Othello as an allusion to the underside of a garment, where the rough seams show;[5] Weekley thought the current sense hardly Shakespeare's.[13] In American slang seam squirrel was a louse (1893),[2] and in later drug slang a seam was a small foil packet of PCP.[17]

Timeline

  • c. 1000 – the join made by sewing two pieces of cloth; also the gaps between a ship's planks, and a skull suture.[5][6]
  • c. 1303 – Middle English seme, in Mannyng's Handlyng Synne.[5]
  • c. 1330 – a line or groove on a surface of rock or stone.[6]
  • c. 1386 – figurative, in Chaucer's Parson's Tale.[6][2]
  • c. 1400 – a long wound, a scar, a deep wrinkle.[6][2]
  • 1582 – verb, to join with a seam.[6][5][11]
  • 1590s – a thin layer of coal or ore.[2]
  • 1596 – verb, to mark a surface with lines or furrows.[6]
  • 1604 – seamy, in Shakespeare's Othello.[5]
  • 1888 – the raised stitching of a cricket ball.[6][2]
  • 1910 – bursting at the seams.[2]
  • 1960 – verb, in cricket, of a ball, to swerve off the seam.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The line along which two pieces of fabric, leather or the like are joined by stitching: The jacket split along the shoulder seam.[18][11][6]
  2. A line, ridge or groove where two edges meet, as between the planks of a ship or two sheets of metal.[18][6][15]
  3. A thin layer or stratum of coal, ore or the like between thicker layers.[18][15][2]
  4. A line on the skin such as a wrinkle or scar.[18][6][15]
  5. (cricket) The raised line of stitching round a cricket ball.[18][6]
  6. burst (or come apart) at the seams: to be very full; to fail or break up.[6][2]
  7. (obsolete, Old English–1668) A suture between bones, especially of the skull.[6][15]

Verb

  1. To join with a seam; to sew the seams of: She seamed the two panels together.[11][6][15]
  2. To mark a surface with lines, furrows or scars; chiefly as seamed: a face seamed by years at sea.[6][15]
  3. (cricket) Of a ball, to change direction on bouncing because of the seam; of a bowler, to make a ball do this.[6][18]

Word family

  • seamer
  • inseam
  • seamy
  • seamless
  • seamster
  • seamstress
  • unseam

Usage notes

Three rarer words are spelled the same.[6][15] A seam was a packhorse load, or a unit of weight or measure based on one, in English dialects; it is Old English sēam (“burden, load”), a West Germanic borrowing of Medieval Latin sauma, from Ancient Greek σάγμα (ságma, “packsaddle”).[6][11][15][12][14] An obsolete or dialect seam meaning fat, grease or lard is from Old French saim.[6][15][19] A seam or seam-nail is a rivet for clinker-built boats, probably owing its sense to Old Norse saumr (“nail”).[6]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  9. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  11. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  12. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  17. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  18. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  19. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)