clam

• IPA^(key): /klæm/
• (æ-tensing) IPA^(key): [kleəm]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æm

From Middle English clam (“pincers, vice, clamp”), from Old English clamm (“bond, fetter, grip, grasp”), from Proto-Germanic *klam (“press, squeeze together”). The sense “dollar” may allude to wampum.

clam (plural clams)

1. A bivalve mollusk of many kinds, especially those that are edible; for example the soft-shell clam (Mya arenaria), the hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria), the sea clam or hen clam (Spisula solidissima), and other species. The name is said to have been given originally to the Tridacna gigas, a huge East Indian bivalve.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 3, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, take 'em with me to Wellmouth, and peddle 'em out. Clams was fairly scarce over that side of the bay and ought to fetch a fair price.

2. Strong pincers or forceps.
3. A kind of vise, usually of wood.
4. (US, slang) A dollar (usually used in the plural).

   Those sneakers cost me fifty clams!

5. (slang, derogatory) A Scientologist.
   • 1998 February 23, jesparolini, “CO$ Celebrities: USEFUL IDIOTS”, in alt.religion.scientology, Usenet‎:

     So the clams have John Travolta, Tom Cruise, et al in their hot li'l ol'P-R hands […]

6. (slang) A vagina.
   • Tom Dalzell, Terry Victor (accessed 11-01-2017), “The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English”, in (Please provide the title of the work)‎: “clam noun 1. the vagina”
7. (informal) One who clams up; a taciturn person, one who refuses to speak.

clam (third-person singular simple present clams, present participle clamming, simple past and past participle clammed)

1. To dig for clams.

• clammy

clam (plural clams)

1. A crash or clangor made by ringing all the bells of a chime at once.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Nares to this entry?)

clam (third-person singular simple present clams, present participle clamming, simple past and past participle clammed)

1. To produce, in bellringing, a clam or clangor; to cause to clang.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Nares to this entry?)

From Middle English clammen (“to smear, bedaub”), from Old English clǣman (“to smear, bedaub”). Cognate with German klamm (“clammy”). See also clammy (“damp, cold and sticky”) and clem (“to adhere, stick, plug (a hole)”).

clam (comparative clammer, superlative clammest)

1. (obsolete) clammy.
   • 1808, John Jamieson, An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language:

     Ice is said to be clam, when beginning to melt with the sun or otherwise, and not easy to be slid upon.

clam

1. clamminess; moisture
   • Carlyle

     The clam of death.

clam (third-person singular simple present clams, present participle clamming, simple past and past participle clammed)

1. To be moist or glutinous; to stick; to adhere.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

2. To clog, as with glutinous or viscous matter.
   • L'Estrange

     A swarm of wasps got into a honey pot, and there they cloyed and clammed themselves till there was no getting out again.

clam (plural clams)

1. (rowing) Alternative form of CLAM

• CAML, Caml, calm

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /ˈklam/
• Rhymes: -am

clam m (plural clams)

1. clamor

• clamor

From Proto-Indo-European *ḱl-, zero-grade form of *ḱel- (“to hide, conceal”). Cognate to Latin cēlō.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /klam/, [kɫã]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /klam/

clam (not comparable)

1. clandestinely, secretly, privately
2. stealthily

clam (+ accusative, ablative)

1. (with accusative or, rarely, ablative) without the knowledge of, unknown to
   • 163 B.C.E. Terence, Heauton Timorumenos, Act II, Scene II:

     Neque adeo clam me est.

     Nor indeed is it unknown to me.

• clanculō
• clanculum

• clanculārius
• clandestīnō
• clandestīnus

• clam in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• clam in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• clam in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• clam in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

• (NE dialects) cloam

• IPA^(key): /klɑːm/

clām m

1. mud