Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A line of junction formed by sewing together two pieces of material along their margins.
  • noun A similar line, ridge, or groove made by fitting, joining, or lapping together two sections along their edges.
  • noun A suture.
  • noun A scar.
  • noun A line across a surface, as a crack, fissure, or wrinkle.
  • noun A thin layer or stratum, as of coal or rock.
  • intransitive verb To put together with or as if with a seam.
  • intransitive verb To mark with a groove, wrinkle, scar, or other seamlike line.
  • intransitive verb To become fissured or furrowed; crack open.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To join with a seam; unite by sewing.
  • In knitting, to make an apparent seam in with a certain stitch: as, to seam a stocking.
  • To mark with a seam, fissure, or furrow; scar: as, a face seamed with wounds.
  • To crack; become fissured or cracked.
  • In knitting, to work in a particular manner so as to produce a seam.
  • noun The line formed by joining two edges; especially, the joining line formed by sewing or stitching together two different pieces of cloth, leather, or the like, or two edges of the same piece; a line of union.
  • noun A piece of plain sewing; that on which sewing is being or is to be done; sewing.
  • noun A line of separation, as between two strata, or two planks or the like when fastened together; also, the fissure or gap formed by the imperfect union of two bodies laid or fastened together: as, to calk the seams of a ship.
  • noun A fissure; a cleft; a groove.
  • noun The ridge in a casting which marks the place where two parts of the mold have been in contact, as in a plaster east or a molded piece of earthenware.
  • noun A cicatrix or scar.
  • noun A bed or stratum: so used especially in speaking of coal: as, a seam of coal (a bed or continuous layer of coal).
  • noun plural See the quotation.
  • noun In anatomy, a suture; a raphe.
  • noun In sail-making, a seam run in the middle of a cloth longitudinally, by overlaying a fold of the canvas on itself, so as to give the appearance of a regular seam as between two separate cloths. This is done for appearance in yacht-sails, and to make the sail stand flatter.
  • noun A horse-load; a load for a pack-horse; specifically, eight bushels of grain or malt.
  • noun Tallow; grease; lard.
  • To cover with grease; grease.
  • noun Same as slit-band.
  • noun A joint used in sheet-metal work where two plates are joined by turning over the edge of the plate and hooking this turned edge into the similarly flexed edge of the next.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To become ridgy; to crack open.
  • noun engraving, engraving The quantity of eight bushels of grain.
  • noun engraving The quantity of 120 pounds of glass.
  • noun Obs. or Prov. Eng. Grease; tallow; lard.
  • transitive verb To form a seam upon or of; to join by sewing together; to unite.
  • transitive verb To mark with something resembling a seam; to line; to scar.
  • transitive verb 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.
  • noun The fold or line formed by sewing together two pieces of cloth or leather.
  • noun Hence, a line of junction; a joint; a suture, as on a ship, a floor, or other structure; the line of union, or joint, of two boards, planks, metal plates, etc.
  • noun (Geol. & Mining) A thin layer or stratum; a narrow vein between two thicker strata.
  • noun A line or depression left by a cut or wound; a scar; a cicatrix.
  • noun a blast made by putting the powder into seams or cracks of rocks.
  • noun a lace used by carriage makers to cover seams and edges; -- called also seaming lace.
  • noun (Agric.) A tailor's sadiron for pressing seams.
  • noun a set for flattering the seams of metal sheets, leather work, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun sewing A folded back and stitched piece of fabric; especially, the stitching that joins two or more pieces of fabric.
  • noun A suture.
  • noun A thin stratum, especially of coal or mineral.
  • noun cricket The stitched equatorial seam of a cricket ball; the sideways movement of a ball when it bounces on the seam.
  • noun An old English measure of grain, containing eight bushels.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English seme, from Old English sēam; see syū- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

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Examples

  • This seam is your back seam. it is good to trim the edges with pinking shears if you have them.

    Year Around Feminine Fashions 2007

  • After the coal seam is mined, the coal operator may move on to reclamation, perhaps by planting lespedeza sericea, a hardy imported ground cover.

    Rebecca R. Scott: Almost Heaven or Almost Hell? Fossil Fuels, Paychecks and Nature Rebecca R. Scott 2010

  • After the coal seam is mined, the coal operator may move on to reclamation, perhaps by planting lespedeza sericea, a hardy imported ground cover.

    Rebecca R. Scott: Almost Heaven or Almost Hell? Fossil Fuels, Paychecks and Nature Rebecca R. Scott 2010

  • It looked wonderful, and fit to perfection, the sleeve-set-in seam sitting precisely on the shoulder, the stripes looking deliberate across body and sleeves.

    Archive 2009-01-01 Jean 2009

  • After the coal seam is mined, the coal operator may move on to reclamation, perhaps by planting lespedeza sericea, a hardy imported ground cover.

    Rebecca R. Scott: Almost Heaven or Almost Hell? Fossil Fuels, Paychecks and Nature Rebecca R. Scott 2010

  • Or dropped-shoulder, like the dinosaur sweater last year, where only a simple straight seam is required.

    Archive 2009-01-01 Jean 2009

  • In portal-quest fantasy, you have a here-and-now and an elsewhen which have a point of contact or overlap; the seam is generally sealed tightly but there's at least one portal that allows the protagonist to set out from the former on a grand adventure through the latter.

    Archive 2008-08-01 Hal Duncan 2008

  • In portal-quest fantasy, you have a here-and-now and an elsewhen which have a point of contact or overlap; the seam is generally sealed tightly but there's at least one portal that allows the protagonist to set out from the former on a grand adventure through the latter.

    Notes on Strange Fiction: Seams Hal Duncan 2008

  • Place the roll in the prepared loaf pan, making sure the seam is on the bottom.

    Archive 2005-12-01 2005

  • Place the roll in the prepared loaf pan, making sure the seam is on the bottom.

    Golden Cinnamon Loaf 2005

Comments

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  • Seamingly

    The line formed by joining two edges

    a line of union

    A line of separation

    the fissure or gap formed by the imperfect union of two bodies laid or fastened together

    The ridge in a casting

    A bed or stratum

    a raphe

    A seam of glass, according to the old statute de ponderibus

    Tallow; grease; lard

    A purl

    June 11, 2012