What does "tame" mean?
Tame: Reduced from a state of native wildness and shyness; accustomed to man; domesticated; domestic; as, a tame deer, a tame bird.
Additional senses
- 2.Crushed; subdued; depressed; spiritless. Tame slaves of the laborious plow. Roscommon.
- 3.Deficient in spirit or animation; spiritless; dull; flat; insipid; as, a tame poem; tame scenery. See Gentle.
- 4.To reduce from a wild to a domestic state; to make gentle and familiar; to reclaim; to domesticate; as, to tame a wild beast. They had not been tamed into submission, but baited into savegeness and stubbornness. Macaulay.
- 5.To subdue; to conquer; to repress; as, to tame the pride or passions of youth.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
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- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00