ta.me marks people, animals, foods, and things as not clean, often in contexts of distinction, avoidance, or exclusion.

The adjective most often marks animals, food, carcasses, and materials as not clean and subject to stated limits on eating or contact. It also describes persons in conditions declared by a priest or associated with bodily discharge, and it occurs where what is not clean is distinguished from what is clean or kept from holy settings.

1. Classified as not clean for food or contact · dominant

   In Leviticus 11:4 the masculine singular absolute form describes the camel in a clause forbidding it as food; the APB renders, “it is unclean to you.” Leviticus 11:26 applies the plural form to animals whose carcasses make a person unclean by touch, while Leviticus 11:38 applies the singular form to seed on which a carcass falls.

   Leviticus 11:4Leviticus 11:26Leviticus 11:38Deuteronomy 14:7Deuteronomy 14:10Deuteronomy 14:19
2. A person declared in a not-clean condition · common

   In Leviticus 13:11 the masculine singular absolute form occurs where the priest is to pronounce a man not clean because of a skin condition; the APB renders, “the priest shall pronounce him unclean.” Leviticus 15:25 uses the feminine singular absolute form for a woman during an extended discharge, and Leviticus 13:45 places the same adjective in the afflicted person's public cry.

   Leviticus 13:11Leviticus 13:15Leviticus 13:45Leviticus 15:25Leviticus 15:33Deuteronomy 26:14
3. Not-clean status distinguished from the clean or holy · common

   Leviticus 10:10 places the masculine singular absolute form in the instruction to distinguish the not-clean from the clean; the APB renders the pair “the unclean and the clean.” Ezekiel 44:23 repeats that contrast in teaching the people, while Isaiah 52:11 couples avoidance of a not-clean thing with purification for those bearing the LORD's vessels.

   Leviticus 10:10Leviticus 11:47Leviticus 20:25Ezekiel 22:26Ezekiel 44:23Isaiah 52:11

In the Anselm Project Bible: Across these verses, the APB commonly uses “unclean” for the adjective, especially in contrasts with “clean” and in instructions about food, contact, and persons. Because the APB is a whole-verse translation, its wording confirms the clauses' overall presentation without fixing every individual correspondence.