Tame

/teɪm/ · adjective

Meaning

(chiefly of animals) Accustomed to human contact..

Definitions by Sense

1. (chiefly of animals) Accustomed to human contact.
2. (chiefly of animals) Docile or tranquil towards humans.
3. (figurative) Of a person, well-behaved; not radical or extreme.
4. (obsolete) Of a non-Westernised person, accustomed to European society.
5. Not exciting.
6. Crushed; subdued; depressed; spiritless.
7. (mathematics, of a knot) Capable of being represented as a finite closed polygonal chain.
8. (transitive) To make (an animal) tame; to domesticate.

Example Sentences

The lion was quite tame.

What, for example, were Fraunhofer's lines? McArdle had just been studying the matter with the aid of our tame scientist at the office, and he picked from his desk two of those many-coloured spectral bands which bear a general resemblance to the hat-ribbons of some young and ambitious cricket club.

The victim was Captain Bickenson, who had gone there from Port Darwin to try the pearling grounds, and for this purpose employed a number of tame blacks about the schooner.

This party is too tame for me.

For a thriller, that film was really tame.

Wow! So the implication there is that even 12-year-olds in France will find the movie tame. “Yes, eet was a, an amusing erotic trifle, I supposa. Ze love-making was passable, but, uh, belt play is a leettle pedestriahn, don’t you seenk?”.

tame slaves of the laborious plough

He tamed the wild horse.

Synonyms for tame

Antonyms for tame

Related Words

Word Forms

• tamer
• tamest
• tames
• taming
• tamed

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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