Team or teem?
team is a noun meaning “A set of draught animals, such as two horses in front of a carriage”; teem is a verb meaning “To be stocked to overflowing”. Use team as a noun and teem as a verb (teem is also a noun: “A downpour (of rain)”). They sound the same (/ˈtiːm/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) team is about 3,981 times as common as teem.
What is the difference between team and teem?
| team | teem | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb, interjection | verb, noun |
| Meaning | A set of draught animals, such as two horses in front of a carriage Any group of people involved in the same activity, especially sports or work To form a group, as for sports or work | To be stocked to overflowing To be prolific; to abound; to be rife A downpour (of rain) |
| Example | We need more volunteers for the netball team | Fish teem in this pond |
| Forms | teams | teems, teeming, teemed |
| Pronunciation | /ˈtiːm/ [ˈtʰɪi̯m] | /tiːm/ |
| In writing | 468 times per million words | about once in every 9 million words |
Sources: team and teem in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of team and teem
team
- 1
A set of draught animals, such as two horses in front of a carriage
- 2
To form a group, as for sports or work
They teamed to complete the project
- 3
colloquialUsed to propose that another player team up with the speaker
- 4
Any group of people involved in the same activity, especially sports or work
We need more volunteers for the netball team
- 5
To go together well; to harmonize
- 6
A group of people who favor one side of a binary debate that is divided and lacks a well-established clear consensus
- 7
To convey or haul with a team
to team lumber
- 8
To form together into a team
to team oxen
teem
- 1
To be stocked to overflowing
- 2
A downpour (of rain)
- 3
To pour (especially with rain)
- 4
To be prolific; to abound; to be rife
Fish teem in this pond
- 5
To pour, as steel, from a melting pot; to fill, as a mould, with molten metal
- 6
To fall prolifically
- 7
IrelandScotlandTo drain the water from (boiled potatoes etc.)
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, team or teem?
team appears 468 times per million words; teem about once in every 9 million words.
team 468 times per million wordsteem about once in every 9 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search team vs teem?
“team vs teem” is searched about 30 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“teem vs team”, “team or teem”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.