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Vinony

tame

adjective

No English definition recorded for this entry.

L18724 on Wikidata ↗

verb

  1. to overcome wildness or fierceness; to render gentle; to cause to be tame
L28413 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /teɪm/

adj

Etymology: From Middle English tame, tome, weak inflection forms of Middle English tam, tom, from Old English tam, tom (“domesticated, tame”), from Proto-West Germanic *tam (“tame”), from Proto-Germanic *tamaz (“brought into the home, tame”), from Proto-Indo-European *demh₂- (“to tame, dominate”). Cognate with Scots tam, tame (“tame”), Saterland Frisian tom (“tame”), West Frisian tam (“tame”), Dutch tam (“tame”), Low German Low German tamm, tahm (“tame”), German zahm (“tame”), Danish tam (“tame”), Swedish tam (“tame”), Icelandic tamur (“tame”). The verb is from Middle English tamen, temen, temien, from Old English temian (“to tame”), from Proto-West Germanic *tammjan, from Proto-Germanic *tamjaną (“to tame”).

  1. Under human control.
  2. Docile or tranquil towards humans.

    “The lion was quite tame.”

  3. Of a person, well-behaved; not radical or extreme.

    “What, for example, were Fraunhofer's lines? McArdle had just been studying the matter with the aid of our tame scientist at the office, and he picked from his desk two of those many-coloured spectral bands which bear a general resemblance to the hat-ribbons of some young and ambitious cricket club.”

  4. Of a non-Westernised person, accustomed to European society.

    “The victim was Captain Bickenson, who had gone there from Port Darwin to try the pearling grounds, and for this purpose employed a number of tame blacks about the schooner.”

  5. Not exciting.

    “This party is too tame for me.”

    “For a thriller, that film was really tame.”

  6. Crushed; subdued; depressed; spiritless.

    “tame slaves of the laborious plough”

  7. Capable of being represented as a finite closed polygonal chain.

name

Etymology: English surname, from the adjective Middle English tame as a nickname, and in some cases a habitational surname from Thame in Oxfordshire.

  1. A surname transferred from the nickname.
  2. A river in the West Midlands, Warwickshire and Staffordshire, England, a tributary to the Trent.
  3. A river in Greater Manchester, England, which joins the River Goyt at Stockport, then becoming the River Mersey.

verb

Etymology: From Middle English tamen (“to cut into, broach”). Compare French entamer.

  1. To broach or enter upon; to taste, as a liquor; to divide; to distribute; to deal out.

    “In the time of famine he is the Joseph of the country, and keeps the poor from starving. Then he tameth his stacks of corn, which not his covetousness, but providence, hath reserved for time of need.”