Meaning
To break down, fall apart or disintegrate - literally, of a garment whose stitched seams split under strain, and figuratively, of a person losing emotional control or of a plan, team or organization failing under pressure. It overlaps with the older burst at the seams, though that phrase now mainly means to be extremely full or crowded. Informal. Frequently in the progressive: coming apart at the seams. Distinguish from bursting at the seams, which means extremely full or crowded. Of people it implies emotional breakdown; of systems, plans or organizations, functional failure. Regional use: Widespread in US, British and other Englishes; the collapse sense tracked to US slang.
Origin
The metaphor is as old as clothing: a seam is the line where two pieces of cloth are sewn together - the OED's factsheet records the word from Old English - and a strained garment gives way first at its seams. Figurative seams are medieval: Etymonline quotes Chaucer's Parson's Tale (c. 1386), 'vnsowen the semes of freendshipe in mannes herte'. The set phrases are far younger: Etymonline dates literal bursting at the seams, of too-tight clothing, to by 1907 and the figurative overfullness sense to by 1910, and Merriam-Webster defines burst at the seams as to be larger, fuller or more crowded than could reasonably have been anticipated. The breakdown sense, come apart at the seams, is twentieth-century: the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms labels it slang of the mid-1900s that transfers physical to emotional disintegration, with come unglued and come unstuck as variants. Debunked: websites that credit the first use to Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) fail a full-text search of the Project Gutenberg edition - the phrase is not in the novel.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- burst at the seams
- bursting at the seams
- come unglued
- come unstuck
Usage Examples
- After the third missed deadline in a month, the whole project began to come apart at the seams.
- She stayed composed through the funeral service, then came apart at the seams once she was home alone.
- The governing coalition came apart at the seams when two parties defected on the budget vote.