These words refer to great amounts or to dense clusters. Teem and swarm both refer to the rapid, independent movement of particles in a small space or cluster. Of the two, swarm is more concrete and more limited in application outside this literal situation: bees swarming around a hive; peak-hour traffic swarming over the bridges into the city; enemy soldiers who came swarming towards us down the hill: a section of the city that swarmed with hippies. Teem is even more emphatic about the frenetic nature of the activity referred to. While the word can have literal application, it is more often applied figuratively. Unlike swarm , which can often carry a negative tone, teem frequently suggests approval for anything that seems instinct with vibrant life: Shakespeare’s teeming brain; a novel teeming with memorable characters and incidents; a new generation teeming with exuberance and iconoclasm. When the word applies in a more nearly neutral way, it can still have a tone of panoramic lyricism: the teeming slums of the city.

Overflow can specifically refer to a fluid that overruns its container: floodwaters that threatened to overflow hastily erected sandbag barriers. In figurative use, the word suggests approval for qualities that someone or something possesses and gives off in copious amounts: a personality overflowing with kindness and generosity. Less often, the word can refer to any-superfluity, as of emotion: pinched, bitter faces overflowing with sullen distrust. Abound is the most general of these words and the most vague in its implications; it suggests a generous portion, usually of favourable qualities: a country that abounds in architectural masterpieces; those of us who still abound in good will. Used negatively, the word can contribute an ironic forcefulness: a government abounded in broken promises.