985: teem and team Aug 20, 2017

There are plenty of reasons why multiple words can sound similar. First, the words could all come from a shared root, and be related in what they mean, either now or what they historically meant, as well have similarities in how they appear audibly. Second, the words could have been pronounced differently, or had different connotations in the past but then later gain similarities that had not originally been present. Third, every association could be completely coincidental; for example the word for 'dog' in the Australian language Mbabaram is 'dog' /dag/, but this is just luck. With that in mind, it may appear due to differences in standard spelling and a lack of relation in meaning that 'team' and 'teem' in English are not related and are simply arbitrarily pronounced the same, but this is not the case. Neither they, nor another related word 'tow' have the same root in Old English, but all of them relate to pulling or pushing something historically. 'Team' and 'tow' still carry this sense somewhat in relation to animals pulling carts and other things, but 'teem' meaning 'full of' used to mean 'give birth to' or 'become pregnant'.