Also 6 teem. [f. TEAM sb. II.: cf. to yoke, to harness, etc. A late formation, the original derivative verb being TEEM v.1]
1. trans. To harness (beasts) in a team; to yoke. Also fig.
1552. Huloet, Teame horses togytber, dextero, as. Ibid. Teame oxen togither, iugo, as.
1597. Middleton, Wisdom Solomon, xiv. 1. The shipman cannot team dame Tethys waves.
1733. Tull, Horse-Hoeing Husb., xxiii. 172. Every Workman knows how to team the Limbers.
1875. Encycl. Brit., II. 663/1. The horses [in a horse-artillery battery] are teamed in pairs,—lead, centre, and wheel.
2. To convey or transport by means of a team. b. absol. or intr. To drive a team, to do teamster’s work. U.S. Cf. TEAMING.
1841. Emerson, Ess., Ser. I. ii. (1876), 66. A sturdy lad…, who teams it, farms it, peddles.
1852. Wiggins, Embanking, 114 A portion was teamed 11/2 mile.
1856. Whittier, Ranger, 126. I … can hear him teaming Down the locust-shaded way.
1888. L. Oliphant, Sci. Relig., iii. 60. I … teamed as a common teamster through the rigours of a Canadian winter.
3. trans. To get (work) done by a team or teams of workmen; to let (work) to a contractor who employs teams of workmen. U.S.
1877. [see TEAMING].
1891. in Cent. Dict.
Hence Teamed ppl. a., harnessed in a team.
1591. Spenser, Virgil’s Gnat, 314.
| By this the night forth from the darksome bowre | |
| Of Herebus her teemed steedes gan call. |
1920. J. Freeman, Out of the East, in Poems, New and Old, 52.
| Then first upon earth’s wave the silver share | |
| Floated, by the teamed oxen drawn. |
