'teamlike' originates from a combination of the noun 'team' (Old English 'team') and the adjectival suffix 'like' (from Old English 'lic'), where 'team' meant 'a group or set' and 'lic' meant 'having the nature of'.

'team' developed in Old English to refer to 'descendants' and later 'a group' and became the modern English 'team'; the suffix 'lic' in Old English became Middle English 'like' used to form adjectives, producing compounds such as 'teamlike' in later English.

Initially it would have meant literally 'having the nature of a team', but over time it has come to be used both literally and figuratively to mean 'cooperative, group-oriented, or characteristic of a team'.