seam

noun

1. A folded-back and stitched piece of fabric; especially, the stitching that joins two or more pieces of fabric.

   “Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […] Frills, ruffles, flounces, lace, complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.”

2. A suture.
3. A thin stratum, especially of an economically viable material such as coal or mineral.

   “He even roused himself to go to the mines once more: […]. He sat there, crippled, in a tub, with the under-ground manager showing him the seam with a powerful torch.”

4. The stitched equatorial seam of a cricket ball; the sideways movement of a ball when it bounces on the seam.
5. A joint formed by mating two separate sections of materials.

   “Seams can be made or sealed in a variety of ways, including adhesive bonding, hot-air welding, solvent welding, using adhesive tapes, sealant, etc.”

6. A line or depression left by a cut or wound; a scar; a cicatrix.
7. (figuratively)A line of junction; a joint.

   “Precepts should be so finely wrought together[…]that no coarse seam may discover where they join.”

8. (historical)An old English measure of grain, containing eight bushels.
9. (historical)An old English measure of glass, containing twenty-four weys of five pounds, or 120 pounds.

   “As white glass was 6s. the 'seam', containing 24 'weys' (pise, or pondera) of 5 lb., and 2½ lb. was reckoned sufficient to make one foot of glazing, the cost of glass would be 1½d. leaving 2½d. for labour.”

10. (UK, dialectal, obsolete, uncountable)Grease; tallow; lard.

    “shall the proud lord That bastes his arrogance with his own seam And never suffers matter of the world”

    “scour their rusty shields with seam”

verb

1. To put together with a seam.

   “Thus, seamed with many scars, / Bursting these prison bars, / Up to its native stars / My soul ascended!”

2. To make the appearance of a seam in, as in knitting a stocking; hence, to knit with a certain stitch, like that in such knitting.
3. To mark with a seam or line; to scar.

   “Seam'd o'er with wounds which his own sabre gave.”

4. To crack open along a seam.

   “Later their lips began to parch and seam.”

5. Of the ball, to move sideways after bouncing on the seam.
6. Of a bowler, to make the ball move thus.