Seeming

How to spell seeming

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce seeming

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does seeming mean?

1. adjectiveAppearing to be true or real, but possibly not so.

Seeming in a sentence

• Her seeming calm hid a great deal of worry about the deadline.

• The seeming simplicity of the recipe disappeared once we started cooking.

Where does seeming come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This word grows from the verb 'seem', which English borrowed from the Old Norse word 'soema', meaning 'to honour' or 'to conform to what is fitting'. In its earliest English life around the 1200s the verb carried the idea of something being suitable or befitting, and from there it slid naturally toward the sense of how a thing presents itself or appears to be. The participial form 'seeming' had become established by the late Middle Ages, working both as an adjective meaning 'apparent rather than genuine' and as a noun for outward appearance. The spelling keeps the double 'ee' of the base verb, which is the part worth fixing in memory, since the trap is wanting to write a single 'e'. A close relative is the adjective 'seemly', meaning 'proper or decent', which preserves that original Norse notion of what is fitting.

How the word is built

• seem (to appear)
• -ing (participial/adjective suffix)