ream
/ɹiːm/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms reams reaming reamed reem raim rim reme
- noun (UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) Cream; also, the creamlike froth on ale or other liquor; froth or foam in general.
- verb (UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To cream; mantle; foam; froth.
- verb (transitive) To enlarge (a hole), especially using a reamer; to bore (a hole) wider.
- verb (transitive) To remove (material) by reaming.
- verb (transitive) To remove burrs and debris from inside (something, such as a freshly bored hole) using a tool.
- verb To shape or form, especially using a reamer.
- verb (slang, vulgar, by extension from sense of enlarging a hole) To sexually penetrate in a rough and painful way.
- verb (slang) To yell at or berate.
- noun (by extension, chiefly in the plural, figurative, law) An extremely large quantity of documents, data, or information that supports a claim, investigation, or case.
- noun (by extension, chiefly in the plural) An abstract large amount of something. “I can't go – I still have reams of work left.”
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
rime dig out ream out nail root tap bunch load pile abundance battalion arseload assload bellyload boatload brimful busload bucketful bucketload butt-ton
Etymology
From Middle English rem, reme, from Old English rēam (“cream”), from Proto-West Germanic *raum, from Proto-Germanic *raumaz (“cream”), from Proto-Indo-European *réwgʰmn̥ (“to sour [milk]”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian Room (“cream”), West Frisian rjemme (“cream”), Dutch room (“cream”), German Low German Rahm, Rohm (“cream”), German Rahm (“cream”), Swedish römme (“cream”), Norwegian rømme (“sour cream”), Faroese rómi (“cream”), Icelandic rjómi (“cream”). See also ramekin.
Etymology uncertain, possibly a variant of rime (etymology 4) with the East Anglian and Kentish development of Old English /yː/ to /eː/ (the modern spelling would thus be unetymologically for *reem). Doublet of room.
* Dutch ruimen (“to empty, evacuate”)
* German räumen (“to make room”)
* Icelandic rýma (“to make room, clear”).
From Middle English reme, from Old French raime, rayme (“ream”) (French rame), from Catalan raima (“ream”), from Arabic رِزْمَة (rizma, “bundle”).
From the German surname, Anglicized from Riehm, Röhm, Roehm.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Cream; also, the cream or froth on ale. [Scot.]
- verb To cream; to mantle. [Scot.]
- verb To stretch out; to draw out into thongs, threads, or filaments.
- noun A bundle, package, or quantity of paper, usually consisting of twenty quires or 480 sheets. Printer's ream, twenty-one and a half quires. [Eng.] A common practice is now to count five hundred sheets to the ream. Knight.
Etymology [AS. reám, akin to G. rahm.]
Etymology [Cf. Reim.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “ream”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details