clam

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

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -æm

From Middle English clam (“pincers, vice, clamp”), from Old English clamm (“bond, fetter, grip, grasp”), from Proto-West Germanic *klammjan (“press, squeeze together”). The sense “dollar” may allude to wampum. The sense "Scientologist" alludes to the Scientologist belief that human thetans (souls) previously inhabited clams.

clam (plural clams)

1. A bivalve mollusk of many kinds, especially those that are edible; for example soft-shell clams (Mya arenaria), hard clams (Mercenaria mercenaria), sea clams or hen clam (Spisula solidissima), and other species, possibly originally applied to clams of species Tridacna gigas, a huge East Indian bivalve.
   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter III, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     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.

   • 1970, “Cherrystones”, in Outlaw, performed by Eugene McDaniels:

     Long as I have my clams I don't give a damn about revolution / Long as I have my rice I don't have to think twice about a solution

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

   Those sneakers cost me fifty clams!

   • 1973, Lucas Webb, Stribling, page 188:

     The network canceled—nonco-operation their legal shysters said. Suing me, for, for ten million clams, damages to sponsors, agencies.

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, vulgar) A vagina.
7. (slang) In musicians' parlance, a wrong or misplaced note.
8. (informal) One who clams up; a taciturn person, one who refuses to speak.
9. (dated, US, slang) mouth (Now found mostly in the expression shut one's clam)
   • 1900, Burt L. Standish, Frank Merriwell's Tricks: Or True Friends and False‎:

     Why, he hasn't opened his clam since that morning in your room. I expected he would hold forth on every and all occasions.

   • 2017, Benjamin Kane Ethridge, Dungeon Brain‎:

     Jason wouldn't shut his clam about the invaders.

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

1. To dig for clams.

• clam up

• clammy

clam (plural clams)

1. A crash or clangor made by ringing all the bells of a chime at once.
   • 1702, Campanologia Improved:

     By the bells standing too long in leading compass, the rest are thrown and jumbled together; whereby claps and clams so unpleasing to the hearers are occasion'd.

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.
   • 1702, Campanologia Improved:

     When they [bells] lie fifths thus 1 5 2 6 3 7 4 8, 'tis then most pleasant and excellent music to clam them; that is, the two notes of each concord to strike together, and if they be clam'd true the eight bells will strike like four, but with far greater musick and harmony.

From Middle English clammen, clemen (“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)”).

• clem

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
   • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):

     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.
   • 1690, [John] Dryden, Amphitryon; or, The Two Sosia’s. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […]; and M. Tonson […], published 1691, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     A chilling sweat , a damp of jealousy,
     Hangs on my brows, and clams upon my limbs

2. To clog, as with glutinous or viscous matter.
   • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:

     A whole Swarm of Wasps got into a Hony-pot, and there they Cloy'd and Clam'd themselves till there was no getting Out again.

clam (plural clams)

1. (rowing) Alternative form of CLAM

clam (plural clams)

1. Alternative form of clem (“to starve”)

• ALCM, CAML, Caml, Malc, calm

From Latin clamor, possibly borrowed through Old French clamor.

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

clam m (plural clams)

1. clamor

   Synonym: clamor

From Proto-Italic *klām perhaps from the accusative case of Proto-Indo-European *ḱleh₂- (“concealment”) from *ḱel- (“to hide, conceal”). Cognate with Latin cēlō and others.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /klam/, [kɫ̪ä̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /klam/, [kläm]

clam (not comparable)

1. clandestinely, secretly, privately

   Antonyms: publice, apertē, vulgō, palam

2. stealthily

• clanculō
• clanculum

• clanculārius
• clandestīnō
• clandestīnus

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 adeō clam mē est.

     Nor indeed is it unknown to me.

• “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 with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• clam in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

• (NE dialects) cloam

From Proto-West Germanic *klaim (“mortar, clay”).

• IPA^(key): /klɑːm/

clām m

1. mud

From Proto-Celtic *klamos (“sick, leprous”). Cognate with Welsh claf (“sick, ill”).[1]

clam m or f

1. leper

The noun's gender depends on the leper's gender. If the leper is male, it is masculine. If the leper is female, it is feminine.

• Middle Irish: clam

• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “1 clam”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language