Wiktionary

tame

See also: Tame and tamë

English

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Dogs and sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated.

Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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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”).

Adjective

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tame (comparative tamer, superlative tamest)

  1. (chiefly of animals) Mild and well-behaved; accustomed to human contact.
    Synonym: gentle
    Antonym: domestic
    The lion was quite tame.
  2. (figurative) Of a person, well-behaved; not radical or extreme.
    • 1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:
      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.
  3. (obsolete) Of a non-Westernised person, accustomed to European society.
    • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 290:
      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.
  4. Not exciting.
    Synonyms: dull, flat, insipid, unexciting
    Antonym: exciting
    This party is too tame for me.
    For a thriller, that film was really tame.
    • 2015 February 15, “Tobacco”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 2, episode 2, John Oliver (actor), via HBO:
      Wow! So the implication there is that even 12-year-olds in France will find the movie tame. “Yes, eet was a, an amusing erotic trifle, I supposa. Ze love-making was passable, but, uh, belt play is a leettle pedestriahn, don’t you seenk?”.
  5. Crushed; subdued; depressed; spiritless.
  6. (mathematics, of a knot) Capable of being represented as a finite closed polygonal chain.
    Antonym: wild
Quotations
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Verb

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tame (third-person singular simple present tames, present participle taming, simple past and past participle tamed)

  1. (transitive) To make (an animal) tame; to domesticate.
    He tamed the wild horse.
    • 2011, Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Penguin, published 2012, page 744:
      Richard Wrangham has noted that the domestication of animals usually tames them by slowing down components of the developmental timetable to retain juvenile traits into adulthood, a process called pedomorphy or neoteny.
    • 2018, Johannes Deutsch, “Exploring energy related knowledge in technology and natural science education: Uncovering energy related understanding of students in the German federal state North Rhine-Westphalia at the end of lower secondary education”, in Marc J. de Vries et al., editors, Research in Technology Education: International Approaches, page 45:
      Due to his ingenuity Homo learned to unleash the energy of wood by taming wild fire and stepped into the pyrocultural age.
  2. (intransitive) To make make submissive or docile.
    The engine is too aggressive, it needs to be tamed.
  3. (intransitive) To become tame or domesticated.
    • 2006, Gayle Soucek, Doves, page 78:
      Tambourines are shy birds and do not tame easily.
  4. (transitive) To make gentle or meek.
    to tame a rebellion
    • 1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter XIX, in The Last Man. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC:
      None but Adrian could have tamed the motley population of London, which, like a troop of unbitted steeds rushing to their pastures, had thrown aside all minor fears, through the operation of the fear paramount.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Further reading

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Etymology 2

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

Verb

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tame (third-person singular simple present tames, present participle taming, simple past and past participle tamed)

  1. (obsolete, UK, dialect) To broach or enter upon; to taste, as a liquor; to divide; to distribute; to deal out.
    • 1642, Thomas Fuller, The Holy State, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Roger Daniel for John Williams, […], →OCLC:
      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.

Anagrams

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Inari Sami

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Etymology

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From Proto-Samic *δëmē.

Pronunciation

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  This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA then please add some!

Noun

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taṃe

  1. glue

Inflection

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Even e-stem, ṃ-m gradation
Nominative taṃe
Genitive tame
Singular Plural
Nominative taṃe tameh
Accusative tame toomijd
Genitive tame tomij
toomij
Illative taṃan toomijd
Locative taameest toomijn
Comitative toomijn tomijguin
Abessive tamettáá tomijttáá
Essive tammeen
Partitive tammeed
Possessive forms
Singular Dual Plural
1st person — — —
2nd person — — —
3rd person — — —

Further reading

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  • tame in Marja-Liisa Olthuis, Taarna Valtonen, Miina Seurujärvi and Trond Trosterud (2015–2022) Nettidigisäänih Anarâškiela-suomakielâ-anarâškielâ sänikirje‎[1], Tromsø: UiT
  • Koponen, Eino, Ruppel, Klaas, Aapala, Kirsti, editors (2002–2008), Álgu database: Etymological database of the Saami languages‎[2], Helsinki: Research Institute for the Languages of Finland

Japanese

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Romanization

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tame

  1. Rōmaji transcription of ため

Middle English

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Etymology 1

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From Old English tam, tom, from Proto-West Germanic *tam (“tame”).

Adjective

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tame

  1. (of animals) tame, domesticated
  2. (of plants) cultivated, domesticated
  3. overcome, subdued
  4. (of people) meek, compliant
  5. (anatomy, medicine, of a fistula) inner, interior
Alternative forms
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  • tam; tom, tome (early Southwest and Southwest Midlands)
Descendants
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  • English: tame
  • Scots: tame

References

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Etymology 2

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Verb

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tame (third-person singular simple present tameth, present participle tamende, tamynge, first-/third-person singular past indicative and past participle tamed)

  1. Alternative form of tamen (“to cut, carve”)

Etymology 3

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Noun

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tame (uncountable)

  1. (Northern) Alternative form of tome (“freetime”)

Norwegian Nynorsk

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Adjective

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tame

  1. (non-standard since 2012) definite singular of tam
  2. (non-standard since 2012) plural of tam

Serbo-Croatian

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Noun

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tame (Cyrillic spelling таме)

  1. inflection of tama:
    1. genitive singular
    2. nominative/accusative/vocative plural

Swedish

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Adjective

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tame

  1. definite natural masculine singular of tam

Anagrams

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