seem
Word History
Date of Origin 12th c.
Originally, seem meant ‘be suitable’ (a meaning preserved in the derived seemly (13th c.)). It was borrowed from the Old Norse verb soema ‘conform to, honour’. This was derived from the adjective soemr ‘fitting’, a descendant of the prehistoric base *sōm- (to which English same is distantly related). The sense ‘appear to be’ emerged in the early 13th century.
