different between layer vs seam

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /l??/, (spelling pronunciation) /le?.?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?le?.?/
• Rhymes: -??(?), -e??(?)
• Homophone: lair (one pronunciation)

Etymology 1

Appears at first glance to be from Middle English leyer, leyare (“a layer of stones or bricks”), equivalent to lay +? -er. In which case, ultimately identical to the other word below that is also spelt layer.

However, this word layer (referring to a thickness of a material covering a surface) has long been argued to be from a respelling of an obsolete sense of the word lair that was once used by farmers, which had to do with soil. The connecting sense between the usual meaning of lair and the specialised farming meaning was: an area where cows typically rest, the ground being fertilised by their waste. Related to lie, ledger.

Noun

layer (plural layers)

1. A single thickness of some material covering a surface.

   Wrap the loaf in two layers of aluminum foil before putting it in the oven.

   After the first coat of paint dried, he applied another layer.

   1. An item of clothing worn under or over another.

      It's cold now but it will warm up this afternoon. Make sure you wear layers.

2. A (usually) horizontal deposit; a stratum.

   I find seven-layer cake a bit too rich.

3. One of the items in a hierarchy.

   mired in layers of deceit

   • 2001, C/C++ Users Journal (volume 19, page 38)

     Right above the database access layer sits a number cruncher that performs any calculations that a particular request may require, such as computing a standard deviation. In many cases, this layer just forwards raw numbers.

4. (computer graphics, by analogy to a stack of transparencies) one in a stack of (initially transparent) drawing surfaces that comprise an image; used to keep elements of an image separate so that they can be modified independently from one another.

Synonyms

• (single thickness): lay (obsolete)
• (stratum): stratum

Derived terms

• boundary layer
• orchestration layer
• ozone layer

Translations

Verb

layer (third-person singular simple present layers, present participle layering, simple past and past participle layered)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To cut or divide into layers.
2. (transitive, intransitive) To arrange in layers.

   Layer the ribbons on top of one another to make an attractive pattern.

Translations

Etymology 2

lay +? -er

Noun

layer (plural layers)

1. A person who lays anything, such as tiles or a wager.
   • 1890, The Argosy (volume 49, page 183)

     If fortune ever favoured any venturesome layer of bets, Tom Elliot was certainly the one that day.

2. A mature female bird, insect, etc. that is able to lay eggs.

   When dealing with an infestation of headlice, the first step is to eliminate the layers.

3. A hen kept to lay eggs.
4. A shoot of a plant, laid underground for growth.

Translations

Derived terms

• minelayer
• tracklayer

Further reading

• layer in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• layer in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Arely, Arley, Early, Leary, Raley, Rayle, early, leary, re-lay, relay

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /si?m/
• Homophones: seem, seme
• Rhymes: -i?m

Etymology 1

From Middle English seem, seme, from Old English s?am (“seam”), from Proto-West Germanic *saum, from Proto-Germanic *saumaz (“that which is sewn”).

Alternative forms

• seme (obsolete)

Noun

seam (plural seams)

1. (sewing) 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. (geology) A thin stratum, especially of an economically viable material such as coal or mineral.
4. (cricket) The stitched equatorial seam of a cricket ball; the sideways movement of a ball when it bounces on the seam.
5. (construction) A joint formed by mating two separate sections of materials.

6. A line or depression left by a cut or wound; a scar; a cicatrix.
7. (figuratively) A line of junction; a joint.
   • 1697, Joseph Addison, Essay on Virgil's Georgics

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

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From the noun seam.

Verb

seam (third-person singular simple present seams, present participle seaming, simple past and past participle seamed)

1. To put together with a seam.
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.
4. To crack open along a seam.
   • 1880, Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

     Later their lips began to parch and seam.

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

Quotations

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Skeleton in Armor:

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

Etymology 3

From Old English s?am (“a burden”), from Latin sagma (“saddle”).

Noun

seam (plural seams)

1. (historical) An old English measure of grain, containing eight bushels.
2. (historical) An old English measure of glass, containing twenty-four weys of five pounds, or 120 pounds.
   • 1952, L. F. Salzman, Building in England, p. 175.

     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.

Etymology 4

From Middle English seime (“grease”), from Old French saim (“fat”). Compare French saindoux (“lard”).

Noun

seam (plural seams)

1. (Britain, dialect, obsolete) grease; tallow; lard

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.

Further reading

• seam on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• seam (sewing) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• AMEs, ASME, Ames, MSAE, Mesa, Same, eams, mase, meas, meas., mesa, same

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *saum, from Proto-Germanic *saumaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sæ???m/

Noun

s?am m (nominative plural s?amas)

1. seam

Declension

Derived terms

• s?amere
• s?amestre

Descendants

• Middle English: seme, seem
  • English: seam