Clam

How to spell clam

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce clam

What does clam mean?

1. nounAn edible marine mollusc with two hinged shells that clamp tightly shut.
2. verbTo suddenly stop talking and refuse to say anything, usually as part of the phrase 'clam up'.

Clam in a sentence

• noun

  The restaurant served a creamy clam chowder for lunch.

• verb

  Witnesses tend to clam up the moment a lawyer enters the room.

• noun

  She dug for each clam buried in the wet sand at low tide.

• verb

  He would clam up whenever anyone asked about his finances.

Where does clam come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes from the Old English clamm, which meant a bond, a fetter, or a tight grip, and it belongs to the same Germanic family as the verb 'to clamp'. The shellfish picked up the name because of the powerful way its two shells clamp tightly shut, gripping themselves closed against anything that tries to pry them open. The sense referring to the edible bivalve mollusc became common in English in the 1500s, especially in coastal and later North American usage. The same root idea of clamping shut also explains the informal phrase 'to clam up', meaning to fall stubbornly silent, as if the lips were snapping closed like a shell. Because the spelling is short and phonetic, with no silent letters or doubled consonants, it has stayed simple and stable over the centuries.

How the word is built

• clam (from Old English clamm: a bond, grip, or clamp)