Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word tam. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word tam, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say tam in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word tam you have here. The definition of the word tam will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition oftam, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
1 When an adjective is applied predicatively to something definite, the corresponding "indefinite" form is used. 2 The "indefinite" superlatives may not be used attributively.
“tam”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
“tam”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
tam in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
tam in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
amongst such moral depravity: tam perditis or corruptis moribus
^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “tam”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 606
Boryś, Wiesław (2005) “tam”, in Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego (in Polish), Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, →ISBN
B. Sieradzka-Baziur, Ewa Deptuchowa, Joanna Duska, Mariusz Frodyma, Beata Hejmo, Dorota Janeczko, Katarzyna Jasińska, Krystyna Kajtoch, Joanna Kozioł, Marian Kucała, Dorota Mika, Gabriela Niemiec, Urszula Poprawska, Elżbieta Supranowicz, Ludwika Szelachowska-Winiarzowa, Zofia Wanicowa, Piotr Szpor, Bartłomiej Borek, editors (2011–2015), “2. tam”, in Słownik pojęciowy języka staropolskiego [Conceptual Dictionary of Old Polish] (in Polish), Kraków: IJP PAN, →ISBN
According to Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej (1990), tam (adverb) is one of the most used words in Polish, appearing 34 times in scientific texts, 35 times in news, 70 times in essays, 148 times in fiction, and 216 times in plays, each out of a corpus of 100,000 words, totaling 503 times, making it the 87th most common word in a corpus of 500,000 words.[1]
Particle
tam
contrastive particle
Ja tam to lubię. ― Yeah well I like it.
(colloquial)particle that reduces the importance of somethingsome
coś tam ― something or other
(colloquial)particle that marks a statement as inadequately describing something
Trivia
According to Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej (1990), tam (particle) is one of the most used words in Polish, appearing 0 times in scientific texts, 0 times in news, 0 times in essays, 27 times in fiction, and 78 times in plays, each out of a corpus of 100,000 words, totaling 105 times, making it the 593rd most common word in a corpus of 500,000 words.[2]
Etymology 2
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
^ Ida Kurcz (1990) “tam (adverb)”, in Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej [Frequency dictionary of the Polish language] (in Polish), volume 2, Kraków, Warszawa: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Języka Polskiego, page 595
^ Ida Kurcz (1990) “tam (particle)”, in Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej [Frequency dictionary of the Polish language] (in Polish), volume 2, Kraków, Warszawa: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Języka Polskiego, page 595
Further reading
tam in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
“TAM I”, in Elektroniczny Słownik Języka Polskiego XVII i XVIII Wieku [Electronic Dictionary of the Polish Language of the XVII and XVIII Century], 2016 May 10
“TAM II”, in Elektroniczny Słownik Języka Polskiego XVII i XVIII Wieku [Electronic Dictionary of the Polish Language of the XVII and XVIII Century], 2008 January 14
“tam”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2003–2024
1 The indefinite superlative forms are only used in the predicative. 2 Dated or archaic. 3 Only used, optionally, to refer to things whose natural gender is masculine.
The term was probably already archaic by the time it started to be written down and was only attested in the compound 三(anh tam, “elder brother and younger sibling”).