clam
pronunciation
How to pronounce clam in British English:
UK [klæm]
How to pronounce clam in American English:
US [klæm]
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- Noun:
- burrowing marine mollusk living on sand or mud
- a piece of paper money worth one dollar
- flesh of either hard-shell or soft-shell clams
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- Verb:
- gather clams, by digging in the sand by the ocean
Word Origin
- clam
- clam: [OE] Old English clam meant ‘something for tying up or fastening, fetter’; it can be traced back to a prehistoric Germanic base *klam-, which also produced clamp [14] and is related to climb. There is a gap in the word’s history in early Middle English times, but it reappears at the end of the 14th century in the sense ‘clamp’, and in the 16th century it was applied, originally in Scotland, to the mollusc which now bears the name, apparently on the grounds that its two shells close like the jaws of a clamp or vice.=> clamp, climb
- clam (n.)
- bivalve mollusk, c. 1500, in clam-shell, originally Scottish, apparently a particular use from Middle English clam "pincers, vice, clamp" (late 14c.), from Old English clamm "bond, fetter, grip, grasp," from Proto-Germanic *klam- "to press or squeeze together" (cognates: Old High German klamma "cramp, fetter, constriction," German Klamm "a constriction"). If this is right then the original reference is to the shell. Clam-chowder attested from 1822. To be happy as a clam is from 1833, but the earliest uses do not elaborate on the notion behind it, unless it be self-containment.
- clam (v.)
- "to dig for clams," 1630s, American English, from clam (n.). Clam up "be quiet" is 1916, American English, but clam was used in this sense as an interjection mid-14c.
Example
- 1. Clam or mussel stew with greens and beans : this wonderful winter seafood stew is easy to make and to serve .
- 2. And we need them -- they are keystone species for everything from building coral reefs to anchoring the ocean food chain to making a killer linguine and clam sauce .
- 3. The best places to go for the best of regional food - start with clam chowder in boston and finish up with sweet iced tea in the deep south .
- 4. If tony blair , as newly installed " mr europe " , were to turn up for lunch at the white house tomorrow , would obama join him for clam chowder ?
- 5. In the first century ad pliny the elder , a roman statesman , naturalist and writer , documented the glowing creatures near his home in the bay of naples , including glowing jellyfish and a species of glowing clam that was considered a delicacy in his day .