clam up

English

Etymology

By analogy with a clam closing itself.

Pronunciation

Audio (AU) (file)

Verb

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

(intransitive, idiomatic) To become silent; to stop talking, to shut up.
- 1986, Paul Chadwick, Concrete: Under the Desert Stars, Dark Horse Books
  Maybe he … or she … was a witness who refused to clam up … a whistle blower …

Synonyms

shut up

Antonyms

talk

Translations

become silent

Breton: tevel (br)
Dutch: zwijgen (nl), zijn mond houden
Esperanto: silenti
Finnish: hiljetä (fi)
French: (colloquial) la fermer (fr), (colloquial) fermer son clapet (fr), (vulgar) fermer son claque-merde (fr), (informal) la boucler (fr)
German: schweigen (de)
Greek: σωπαίνω (el) (sopaíno)
Italian: tacere (it)
Kazakh: үндемеу (ündemew)

Limburgish: zwiege (li)
Maore Comorian: uɓuriha
Maori: whakangūngū
Northern Sami: jaskkodit, jávohuvvat
Portuguese: fechar-se
Russian: замолка́ть (ru) impf (zamolkátʹ), замолча́ть (ru) pf (zamolčátʹ)
Spanish: callarse (es)
Swedish: tiga (sv)
Záparo: yánunu

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