Seamy

[Dr. Goodword]

• seamy •

Pronunciation: see-mi • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Sordid, morally degraded, squalid, sleazy, unpleasant. 2. (Obsolete) Showing the rough side of an article of clothing, the side with seams.

Notes: This word is one we use every day without questioning its origin or relation to seam. The adverb is the expectable seamily and the noun, seaminess. Notice the replacement of Y with I in both instances.

In Play: When this word is encountered, politics jumps to mind: "Even the best of politics involves seamy maneuvers and ads." However, it applies to anything shady: "Phil Anders takes June McBride to a seamy little cabaret on the other side of the tracks in order not to be seen by decent members of his society."

Word History: Today's Good Word began its life with its innocent but obsolete meaning above. It comes from Proto-Germanic saumaz "seam", which turned into Dutch zoom "hem" and German Saum "hem". Proto-Germanic seems to have created its word out of PIE syu- "to sew", which also produced Sanskrit sivyati "sews", Greek hymen "thin skin, membrane", Russian šit' "to sew", and Latin sutura "seam", from suere "to sew", whence English suture. We find its remains in Latvian šūt "to sew", Lithuanian siūti "to sew", Hindi seena "to sew", Marathi śivane "sew", Gujarati sivava "to sew", Irish fuaigh "to sew" and Scottish Gaelic fuaigheal "to sew". (Now for a double "thank-you" for Jeremy Busch, who not only serves on our editorial board but wondered in print about how today's Good Word came by its current meaning.)

[Debbymoge]

I'm with Jeremy.
How did it come to have today's meaning?
What turned it inside out?

Debby M.

[Philip Hudson]

Notice that seemly means "nice" and unseemly is close to meaning seamy.

[bbeeton]

Debby, there have been periods in "modern" fashion where garments with the seams turned out were quite in vogue, but "seamy" had already acquired its less-than-sterling meaning.

On the other hand, more than once I've discovered that I've donned a garment inside out, having been not quite awake when I got dressed. That's my excuse. But I can well imagine someone dressing in a hurry while "incapacitated" for other reasons.

[David Myer]

Remember the Hiawatha parody, Milkanwatha:

He killed the noble Mudjokivis.
Of the skin he made him mittens,
Made them with the fur side inside,
Made them with the skin side outside.
He, to get the warm side inside,
Put the inside skin side outside.
He, to get the cold side outside,
Put the warm side fur side inside.
That’s why he put the fur side inside,
Why he put the skin side outside,
Why he turned them inside outside.

It's all about warmth, apparently. Perhaps the word should be steamy not seamy? Certainly in my experience, with the fur side inside and the skin side outside, the seamy side is showing. Ahh, bring back the obsolete meaning.