tame
adjectiveverbverbcommon in dialogue
- //teɪm//
Under human control.
adjective
- 1
Under human control.
- 2
Docile or tranquil towards humans.
The lion was quite tame.
- 3
figurativeOf 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
obsoleteOf 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.
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?”.
- 6
Crushed; subdued; depressed; spiritless.
tame slaves of the laborious plough
- 7
Capable of being represented as a finite closed polygonal chain.
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”).
verb
- 1
To make or become tame; to domesticate (an animal).
He tamed the wild horse.
Tambourines are shy birds and do not tame easily.
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.
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.
- 2
To make submissive.
The governor tames the engine.
- 3
To take control of something that is unruly.
Police have to tame the riots.
verb
- 1
obsoleteTo 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.
Etymology
From Middle English tamen (“to cut into, broach”). Compare French entamer.
Forms
- comparative
- tamer
- superlative
- tamest
- past tense
- tamed
- past participle
- tamed
- present participle
- taming
- third person singular
- tames